


Race the Rainbow

by Eterya



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Minor Original Character(s), POV Minor Character, Romance, Slice of Life, Yuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6269290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eterya/pseuds/Eterya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a boy, and she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious? ...Well, except both are girls. And they're both skaters. Neon and Reese run into each other - literally - during the Vytal Tournament, and the story just goes from there. </p><p>The events of RWBY Volume 3 from the eyes of some side characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She was a Skater Girl (Pt 1)

***Reese***

Here, kitty, kitty. Why am I thinking of kitties? That's a bow, right? Either way, my singled-out target, Blake Bella-something, tries to get a bit of distance, but no way she's outrunning me. My board follows every slight shift of my body and I easily weave through the icy landscape, and once Blake is in range, with a spin I jump off and kick my board doubling as my weapon – or is it weapons doubling as a board? – at her upper body.

Weak move, sure, but I need to see what she's got. Of course Blake easily deflects the first one with her weapon, from what I can tell a short sword with the sheath doubling as another blade, and I send the returning board right back at her with a punch and she blocks with a kick before going on the offense. I catch my board just in time to parry several blows, but am still driven back thanks to these after-images she calls up to get a push forward and easily chain her attacks. Is that her Semblance?

After taking a powerful kick I find enough room to retaliate, and even though she blocks both strikes of my board, the force behind them is enough to send her reeling, giving me space to do a cartwheel backwards and jump on my board again. Much better.

I lean forward to charge straight at Blake, jumping to attack, but she produces another after-image while darting backwards. The clone shatters like ice, or maybe it actually was made of ice, using her environment, clever girl, and Blake hits me just as I get my feet on my board again, with enough force to send me flying and force the halves of my board to separate. Fine by me.

At but a remote gesture both halves fold together and shift into gun mode, flying into my hands. I grab them and immediately start firing while my momentum forces me to do not only one but two somersaults before I stabilize myself enough to be falling feet first. That's nothing, while boarding I had to do a quadruple one before, but it's exactly stunts like that why I'm wearing shorts. Apart from the fact that skirts are impractical and needlessly girly anyways.

I've done landings like this hundreds of times, so I can easily keep up fire on Blake, even if she seems to be dodging or blocking most of it, while adjusting my center of weight without even looking. Aaand... nailed it. Or not. I was on my hoverboard almost the whole time, so I totally forgot we're on a frozen battlefield. As soon as my feet impact the ground I feel them sliding away and myself appropriately falling backwards. Fu-

I can actually hear the audience gasp in shared pain as I land straight on my tailbone with enough force to bounce once before landing on my back. Oow.

I've had far worse, and I still got plenty aura left, but a wipeout like that still hurts like a bitch. Plus in the middle of a battle it's just embarrassing. To her credit, Blake doesn't just use the opportunity to attack me and knock me out while I'm still on the ground and in pain, but waits until we can continue the fight properly. How very sportsmanlike.

While I try to put as little weight on my backside as possible and wait for my aura to kick into gear, from the side I see Arslan trading blows with another blonde hand-to-hand fighter, who judging from the team name is actually not their leader. After taking a few hits, Arslan matches fists with Yang, who actually manages to withstand the power of the strike that produces a sizable shockwave, but a few seconds later she is tripped up by Arslan's rope dart and sent flying anyways. Looks like Yang has some issues with the ice as well, as she almost slips and can't do anything to defend against Arslan's follow-up attack, being sent the ground right next to Nadir.

However before he can be all unsportsmanlike and get in a hit or three, the large ice crystal next to him shatters and turns out to contain enough Dust that the resulting cloud encases almost his entire legs in ice. What was he standing around there for anyways? We may need to work on that positioning stuff for the doubles round. Or just send me and Arslan, we got this no problem.

I carefully get up shifting my weapon back into board mode and using it as a support, making sure I don't fall again right away. The pain in my backside is gone, but I wait a moment longer to observe the rest of the battle, and from the looks of it, so does Blake. Pass the popcorn, girl.

The origin of Nadir's predicament is the enemy team leader, a young girl with a massive scythe/sniper rifle, who just shot that crystal. Bolin rears up behind her to attack, but forgets to watch his flanks and gets sent flying by the fourth opponent, a scion of the Schnee family and from what I hear, heiress to the name; wonder what she's doing in Vale? And now Bolin is one against two and taking some hits. That's what happens when you mess up your positioning, people get outnumbered. Which is something we do _not_ want.

We need a way to get Nadir free before the others can capitalize on their numbers. ...I think I got it. And apparently, so does Bolin, as he charges his opponents, but instead of actually fighting just runs and dodges his way past them and reaches a large crystal formation on the half of the battlefield covered in fire and stone, then breaks off a piece of it before tossing it over to me in a very well-aimed throw.

I catch the crystal and just about now Blake's face falls when she realizes she should have attacked me at some point as I infuse the fire crystal into my board and take of with a taunting wink at her.

With the element in my board all I need to do is skate past Nadir once and the ice not only thaws, but evaporates, freeing his legs just like I know it will. I don't even wait for the result and just quickly do a turn, it would be rude to keep my opponent waiting after all.

Blake tries to block my attack with both halves of her weapon, but thanks to my power-up, it's not enough and I kick off my board backwards, sending her flying through an ice pillar as my board embeds itself in the ground. I quickly grab it and hop on, setting off the Dust it absorbed before charging again. Blake just barely dodges my fiery slam and gets up, then uses her Semblance to evade the next strike, dashing right past me as her duplicate takes the hit and burns up – obviously as long as she had aura left, this wouldn't happen to an actual human –, running in the other direction and using the blade part of her weapon attached to a long ribbon like a hook to quickly move around a corner and vanish out of my sight.

Get back here, kitty. I turn around and chase after her, quickly finding Blake in the shadow of several large ice pillars with her back to me. Bad move. In the middle of a battle I'm not above taking cheap shots like that either. Sportsmanship is nice and all, but let's be real, I also want to win.

With a smirk I pick up speed and jump, slashing with my board and hitting Blake right from behind – only for her to disappear as soon as I contact her. Her Semblance again? Crap. Before I can react, Blake's weapon flies past me from the side, anchoring in some bit of ice and pulling taut right in front of me, the ribbon hitting me in the stomach and right off my board. I gasp as the impact knocks the air out of me and I start falling, but before I can even try to recover, Blake appears in front of me, aiming her foot at my midsection, and all I can do is try to tense my muscles before taking a pretty powerful kick to my stomach – that also send me flying straight out of the ring.

I hit the barrier in front of the stands before dropping onto the ground face first as the siren announces my ring-out as well TKO by aura and one of the commentators quips about me not wearing a helmet. Jerk.

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it! I strike the ground in frustration. How could I be so stupid? That trap was far too obvious. And it's not even the first time that happened to me, Arslan always says I need to work on my situational awareness. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Man, that sucks. I stand up and grab my board, discharging the remaining dust in as a rather impressive jet of flame that hits the barrier and makes the spectators behind it flinch away and the cast me angry glances. But I don't care, it's not like that bit of fire is gonna do anything to a forcefield of that caliber.

Nothing I can do about that now, I just have to hope I did enough damage to Blake that the other three can turn this around. I tuck my board under my arm and make my way along the side of the battlefield to get a better view of one of the large screens.

As the battle goes on, both of the boys get kicked around a bit, and I can almost hear Arslan's exasperated sigh as she has to free both of them from a massive ball of ice that the Schnee heiress trapped them in. However that also leaves all three of them bunched up, letting the other team pull off an – admittedly impressive – display of teamwork that lets the blonde one, Yang, score a triple-TKO on all of them.

Oh, god damn it. So much for Team ABRN. Day 2, first match, and we're out. And of course I just had to mess up and get eliminated first. With my mood significantly fouled I nonetheless wait for the rest of my team at the exit of the arena.

The others look about as frustrated as I do, and the boys just head towards their locker room without a word while Arslan walks up next to me and pats me on the shoulder with an encouraging smile. “Hey, don't be so down. A loss in a tournament isn't the end of the world.” I know her well enough to tell she's just as frustrated at losing, but as always she does her best to cheer up the rest of us instead, always the team mom.

“Yeah, but I made a totally idiotic mistake and fell for a seriously obvious trap. I mean, why would you just stand there and turn your back to the enemy? And it's not like I didn't see her Semblance before, I just didn't-”

“Reese, save it.” Arslan's voice takes an authoritative edge for a moment before immediately becoming softer again. “We will do a proper debriefing and see what we can learn from this later, but let's be real. Even if you had stayed in and maybe even defeated your target, in the end I don't believe it would have changed anything. They really had their coordination down, and each of them was pretty strong on her own. We were just outmatched here.”

Arslan isn't one to be dishonest just to be nice, so she's not saying that just to cheer me up, but because the other team was in fact that much better. Sounds like all of us need to put in a bunch more training.

I sigh. “If you say so.”

“I do say so.” Arslan smiles. “Now come on. We can head down to the fairgrounds and have our debriefing over ice cream. My treat.”

“Well, alright.” As usual, her smile manages to be contagious, and besides I'm not gonna say no to ice cream.

We head for the girl's locker room, passing who I guess is a combatant for the next match carrying a pair of katar daggers, while I rifle through my pockets for my locker key – and don't find it. “Ah, damn.”

“What's wrong?” Arslan stops in her tracks.

“I think my key fell out of my pocket when I got thrown out of the ring. I need to get it, just go ahead, I'll be right with you.”

Arslan nods and continues her way while I turn around and hop on my board, careful to not hit the ceiling, and take off, swerving past the girl with the daggers and back into the arena, searching for the sector where I landed. There, next to the maintenance door. I brake and jump off, easily catching the board in my left, and start scanning the ground.

...Gotcha. I pick up the key and as I make my way back, the battlefield shifts into neutral mode, and as I round the corner to the hallway to the locker room, the commentators announce the next match, Atlas' Team FNKI versus Team BRGD [Burgundy] of Shade. I am a bit curious about the guys from Atlas, but right now I'm not in the mood for any more battles, I'll catch some more tomorrow.

“Never miss a beat... never miss a beat...” Huh?

“Whoa!” I'm not paying attention to my surroundings, and suddenly something, or rather someone, colorful crashes straight into me and I land backwards on the floor. “Ow! Hey, watch it!”

The culprit is right in front of me in a similar position as myself. It's a girl with bushy orange-red twintails, a blue tank top, a pink skirt and white arm- and shin-guards, wearing roller blades and I think that's a pink tail, so either she's a Faunus or has some pretty odd accessory on her back.

“Ouchies.” She almost jumps up, easily balancing on her roller blades, and only then looks around and registers me. “Oops... Are you okay? Sorry about that, I'm late and I need to get to my match and-” She's talking pretty fast. Is that girl okay or did she hit her head just now? From the way her tail is swishing around behind her, I'm guessing she's a Faunus, some sort of feline, most likely.

The girl holds out a hand and helps me up and then quickly scans me. “Is everything alright?” I just nod and she already continues. “That's good. Oh, hey, I saw you in the arena just now, you looked plenty cool zipping around on your board like that!”

“Um, thanks.”

“Ah, sorry, I have to go, my match is about to start! So, see you, I guess. Bye!” And with that she just takes off, darting down the hallway to the arena.

Um...okay... Well, I think I can clearly say she's not in Team FNKI, Atlas has far too much of a reputation for discipline and stuff. I think I'm gonna watch the recording of that battle later on, I kind of wanna see how this chick fights on roller blades, just for how it's similar or different to my board. Though I don't think her skates are her weapons too.

In the locker room I just quickly wash my face and adjust my hair, there's time for a proper shower later back at Beacon. I grab my stuff, and with my dark blue handbag over one shoulder and my board under the other I leave the locker room and find Arslan and the others waiting for me near the exit to the docks. Time to get some ice cream!

 

We take the next shuttle off the Colosseum, and on the way I get into thinking about how much Arslan acts differently when around only me, Nadir, and Bolin. While she's always warm and passionate, outwardly she's more brash and fiery, but to the team, while still direct to the point of brutal honesty, she's also caring and encouraging if any of us needs it.

I always say she's the team mom, but in actuality, it's more like she's the cool big sis I never had. It probably helps she is in fact the oldest child, with another sister and three brothers younger than her. All I got was to be an older sister myself to my pair of twin brothers, but seeing as both of them are into skateboarding and are training to get into Haven once they're old enough, I think I did a decent enough job.

We land at the fairgrounds around Beacon and quickly find a large ice cream stand. Looks like compared to Mistral in Vale there's a higher demand for ice cream, giving rise to a lot of interesting flavors. Cinnamon, Rose-flavored, Peach, – sucks that they don't have this in Mistral, I really like peaches – and whose idea was it to make marshmallow ice cream, and why is it so delicious?

Once everyone is loaded up, we find a bench to sit down in the shadow of some large tree and do our “debriefing”, which is more of a game of “point out my own mistakes before the others do”. I know, I know, I need to work on my situational awareness and maybe think stuff through just a bit, but that would mean slowing down, and when I'm on my board I don't _do_ slowing down.

Apart from the positioning issues the boys had, Bolin also made an unnecessary one-liner instead of just attacking, and Nadir… didn't really accomplish much, but it would be mean to call him 'weak' or something, he was just unlucky. He kind of always is. If one of us trips and falls into a river during a mission, it's gonna be him. If all four eat the same spoiled food, guess who gets the poisoning. And this time he was frozen for like half the battle, and then just got whacked around by the Schnee heiress before getting stuck in a massive snowball.

Like often enough, there's not really much to complain about for Arslan. She's a very competent and fierce fighter, yet manages to stay level-headed all throughout and try leading the team. But we all agree we need to work on our coordination and maybe come up with some special combination maneuvers.

However no one is in the mood for training right after our battle, and besides Arslan insists we're here to visit the Festival, not do more training like we did at Haven the last few weeks. There's gonna be two whole years to get better and redeem ourselves at the 41st Tournament, when we're in 4th year. I think that one's gonna be in Mistral, so we'll even have a bit of a home field advantage. But right now it's time to “take the day off and enjoy ourselves” – leader's orders –, so that's what we'll do.

As usual for Nadir and Bolin that means returning to our dorm and reading or playing video games respectively, and Arslan says she'll join them and meditate a bit, then catch therest of the battles after the lunch break. But I'm not in the mood for any of that right now, so I suppose I'll hit the city on my own; it's the capital, so I'm sure there's a skate park somewhere, and if not at least some interesting stores.

So I say goodbye for the moment and while the others head back towards Beacon I go the opposite direction, across the fairgrounds into Vale city. There's Team RWBY talking to a green-haired pickpocket, from the looks of it without even catching on to her, but then why would you steal a wallet just to give it back right away? Hang on... okay, my wallet's still there, good.

I could go over to talk to them and be a graceful loser, but screw that. Arslan's much more the type to do that, and besides if I hadn't messed up- Don't bother. Nothing I can do about that anymore, except do better next time.

I don't think I've seen the other girl fight so far. Or I just missed it, yesterday I only watched two of the fights. Haven's Team CSTL [Celestial] was eliminated by Beacon's Team CRDL, but from what I hear our freshmen of Team TRKS [Turquoise] made it to the next round in the very first match of the Tournament, so Haven is still in the game, though I guess all 8 Teams from one school getting kicked out in the first round would be seriously unlucky; plus there's like four more Haven Teams who can still make it.

As RWBY and the green-haired girl part ways, I move on, looking for any familiar faces or interesting stuff to do. Hey, there's Sun and Neptune, but the latter is currently in the process of hitting on a pair of girls that are in turn trying to hit on the former. I think Team SSSN will have their first match later today, so I could go and wish them luck, but I'm not intent on disturbing the... nice… conversation the four of them are currently having. Besides if Neptune tries hitting on me again, there's a serious chance I am going to literally hit him. In the face. Again.

The other half of the team is sitting close by, chatting while keeping half an eye on their companions' antics, so I head over to them instead.

“Hey, guys. How you doing?”

Both of them look up. “Oh, hello,” Scarlet says while Sage just nods in greeting. “We're fine. And you?”

I shrug. “Meh. I'm gonna be fine.” That's about the best I got while still being technically honest. “You guys have your first match today too, don't you?”

“Yes.” Scarlet nods “Against Team NDGO of Shade. If I recall correctly, an all-female Team, so I hope Neptune doesn't do anything embarrassing.” Yeah, you keep hoping that.

Speak of the devil, Sun and Neptune finish their conversation and walk over to us, with Neptune waving after the girls over his shoulder.

“Hey, Reese, what's up?” Sun asks.

“Nothing much. I just wanted to wish you guys luck for your upcoming battle. Hopefully you'll do better than us.”

When he hears my voice, Neptune turns around, “Heelloo there, s-” and immediately cuts himself off as he recognizes me; I think he just muttered 'not my beautiful face', so that's a mission accomplished.

“Thanks,” Sun says, completely ignoring his partner “We'll do our best of course. Right, guys?” The others nod in agreement.

“And besides,” he continues “I think you did pretty well. It's just that, well, you got matched against Team RWBY. Neptune and I got to fight alongside them before, and the four of them are extraordinarily strong. From what they told me, during their initiation, they managed to kill a full-grown Nevermore, and that other Team that was with them defeated a Deathstalker.”

“But the other Team had Pyrrha Nikos with them,” Neptune throws in “so that's not so much of a surprise, right?”

Pyrrha Nikos, huh? I didn't know she moved to Vale. I fought her in the Mistral Region Tournament final, during our time at Sanctum. She was one year below me, but in our battle still easily and thoroughly beat me. Although for someone so skilled and famous she always seemed a bit lonely; weird. Well, if we're talking power levels like that, if Team RWBY is similarly strong, I guess it's not as surprising we got beaten. It still sucks, though.

“Guess so.” Sun nods and then gets out his Scroll to check the time. “Speaking of which, we should get going, Team JNPR's match is gonna start soon, and Neptune and I want to see Pyrrha in battle.”

“So do we,” Scarlet says and Sage nods “Let's go.”

“Yeah,” Sun says “Reese, you wanna come too?”

Seeing _the_ Pyrrha Nikos in action again does sound tempting, but I still think... “Nah, for today I'm done with battles, I was about to check out the city.”

“It's pretty neat. And the street vendors are so inattentive, it's like taking candy from a baby. I almost feel sorry for them.”

“But not sorry enough to stop stealing,” Sage reprimands Sun.

“Well, no. I still have to eat, you know.”

Yeah, I'm not gonna delve into that. “Alright, see you, guys. And good luck in your fight.”

“Thanks.” Sun waves over his shoulder as Team SSSN gets up and starts heading towards the shuttle airfield. “Have fun in the city. See you around.”

As they leave I once more start in the other direction. Lunch break is over, so there aren't many students around right now; most of them are probably training for, recovering from, or watching the battles, probably this one in particular.

I make my way off the school grounds and into the city proper, taking out my Scroll to look up a map. That's one of the big advantages of the schools being so close to the CCT Tower, you almost always have great reception and up/down speeds. Now, where to go...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: There it is, my first ever fic I got to the point of uploading. Constructive criticism (emphasis on constructive) very much welcome.
> 
> Firstly, a massive thank you to user Dongyrn for telling me to just man up and upload this, and betaing all of it, and giving me some general advice on writing and uploading things. You rock, dude.
> 
> As can be gleamed from the tags, this story will eventually lead to ReeseXNeon, which I don't think there is a ship name for yet (the best suggestion I heard is 'XX-Games', from the X-Games and them both being girls, thus having XX-chromosomes). Shoutout to /u/Thothslibrary on reddit for a post of theirs inspiring me to write this pairing.
> 
> Apart from CRDL and one OC-Team, the other two battles on the first day were Cinder's and Penny's Teams', which conveniently saves me from having to come up with 'proper' names for them because none were given in canon so far.
> 
> I keep feeling I have to comment on every small thing, but then this would get way too long and I don't think anyone actually wants to hear that, so I'm not going to, and instead just let the story speak for itself.


	2. She was a Skater Girl (Pt 2)

***Neon***

“Hey! Stop running!” “Nu-uh! You're too slow!” “Damn it, get back here!”

Never miss a beat… Never miss a beat... This is too easy. I keep swerving around both the trees and my opponent's shots, agitating the black-haired girl with the dark dress and wielding twin revolvers ever further.

“Yo, Neon, you about done?” Flynt calls from the middle of the arena as the siren announces the ring-out of his opponent. Now it's three on one, so this is pretty much over.

I stop in a small clearing and ready my nunchucks; I got no idea which element I have on them right now. “I'm right here!” I call in the direction of my opponent. “Let's finish this!”

A few moments later she steps onto the clearing, her weapons transformed back into katar. “Oh, I am gonna finish you, kitty-cat.”

“Oh yeah? What are you gonna do, blacky-black? Read poetry at me about how no one understands your dark, tortured soul?” What? With her pale skin and ton of makeup, she really does look the part.

“That's it, you're going down!”

As the girl charges at me I bend my nunchucks to activate them; looks like fire, I can work with that. I meet her attack head-on, but suddenly with a twirl she transforms into a writhing dark cloud headed in my direction and I just barely manage to get out of the way and start skating. I move along the edge of the clearing as the cloud transforms back into the girl, then the cloud again, moving to intercept my path.

Never miss a beat… Never miss a beat... I just narrowly skate around her while striking with my nunchucks, and it feels like I hit something, even if my arm takes a minor hit from her blade, but my aura stops any actual damage.

“What's with the black cloud? Can you even see in that thing?” I taunt my opponent as I keep accelerating, and in reply the cloud darts past me again, slashing at my thigh. “Come on, your dress is actually really pretty, why hide it?”

Never miss a beat… Never miss a beat... Now I charge at her too, my right arm trailing behind me until I'm close enough and strike with my nunchucks full force, the impact sending the cloud reeling, and she quickly transforms back into the girl who looks like she's just barely hanging on.

“Neon! Are you alright?” I hear Flynt, and I grin at my opponent.

“Now it's time to... Um, you are... Just pretend I made some witty quip before beating you, 'kay?” Yeah, weak, but sometimes you just draw a blank, nothing I can do.

I attack again and she blocks, but the fire Dust detonating on the impact combined with me swinging around to bodycheck her in the back are enough to knock her to the ground as the siren announces the TKO.

“Aaannd there is the knockout via aura levels for Darcia Glowe after a beautiful endgame from Neon Katt!” The announcer-guy announces.

“Yes, quite,” the other one adds “Using her Dust-infused weapon to hit through Miss Glowe's semi-tangible Semblance, a very good move.”

Hm, yeah I guess I did that. Was the fire on my nunchucks really so important? Well, he's the doctor, so he's bound to know.

“Yes, indeed.” The first announcer says “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the match, and a clear victory for Team FNKI of Atlas!”

Yay, they're cheering for us! With a smile I hold out a hand to my fallen adversary and after a split second's hesitation she takes it and gets up.

“You know I didn't really mean any of that, right?” I say “I was just teasing you. I actually really like that dress of yours, it's so… gothic-y. You put up a good fight, Darky. How about you ask your Team if they want to go party with us some time soon?”

Instead of an answer Darcia just turns around and stalks away. Sore losers, some people. Well, whatever. I make my way back to the middle of the arena, meeting up with the rest of Team FNKI.

“Good job, Neon.” Flynt is waiting for me, while Iris is still fuzzing over Kyle, who took a hit that was aimed at her after she misstepped and got knocked out instead. It's kind of funny to see the petite girl in the white suit supporting the boy two full heads taller than her and wearing a legit suit of metal gray plate armor.

“I keep telling you, I'm fine.” With his size and deep voice, even after half a year of Team FNKI, it's still hard to get over the fact that Kyle's like 3 months younger than both me and Iris.

“Are you sure? I'm really sorry, you only got hit because of my mess-up.”

“No, I didn't. I chose to shield a teammate from an attack she would have had no chance of avoiding.”

“Well, yeah, but you didn't have to. Why did you do that?”

“Because that's what I do. At that point you weren't only a teammate and a friend, but also a damsel in need, so my course of action was clear.”

Really? Who still uses 'damsel'? And the best thing is, Kyle was in fact raised just like that; even in modern times, he is a knight in shining armor. Except the armor is much more dark gray and not very shiny, but still.

Flynt and I share a knowing glance at Iris getting so worked about Kyle. It's adorable. The two knew each other already before attending Atlas Academy, and the chemistry between them is absolutely obvious for anyone else but the two. I really hope they get together at some point, they'd make an absolutely cute couple.

Iris probably would go on for a while longer, but Flynt steps in. “I'm sure Kyle's just fine. We can have a nurse look at him if that makes you happy, but let's get going.”

“Hear that, Iris? Come on.”

“Well, okay.”

As the commentator announces the lunch break before the next two matches we make our way back to the locker room.

For all the fuzz Iris is making, it's like she's forgetting who the MVP of the battle actually was. Right off the bat Flynt bust out his Killer Quartet and knocked one of our opponents out of the ring, then he, Iris and Kyle got another, then Kyle got knocked out and then they got the third one, while I just took the one who reacted to best to my initial mocking of the group and ran with it.

Normally, if applicable, I just keep running circles around my opponent and hit them a bit if I can until the rest of the team gets an advantage and can clean up the one I kept occupied, so the forest biome and me actually getting the KO myself this time are just the icing on the cake. ...Now I'm hungry for cake.

It's lunchtime anyways, and I need my sugar, so I'm gonna persuade our fearless leader to treat us all to cake to celebrate our victory. And if that fails, Kyle was never good at refusing Iris or me a favor, so I will get my cake either way.

“Hey, Iris,” I ask while we're in the locker room “You totally agree that some delicious cake would be the perfect lunch, right?”

“Guess so, why?”

“'Cause I'm gonna get Flynt to treat all of us. To celebrate our victory and stuff.”

“How about _you_ treat all of us if you want cake?”

“And where would I take the money for that?”

“Where would Flynt?” ...Good point.

“Then how about you ask Kyle for me? The two of you are really close.”

“One, ask him yourself. And two, don't. You shouldn't take advantage of him like that.”

“Because you're the only one allowed to do that, right?” I grin as Iris protests.

“What? No, I'm not either.”

“Then he just _happened_ to be carrying your bags for you all the way from the airport.”

“Well, they were heavy, and Kyle didn't mind-... I'm a terrible person, aren't I?”

“Just a little. So how about you treat all of us to cake to make up for your bad karma?”

“You'll have to try better than that, Neon.”

Hm... “Then how about a bet? We'll ask both Flynt _and_ Kyle, and if both would have agreed to treat us, you pay instead, but if even one says no, the cake's on me instead.”

Iris ponders for a moment before nodding. “Okay. But only under the condition that I ask Flynt and you ask Kyle.” Sneaky, but it's not gonna change the outcome.

“You're on.” I extend my hand and Iris shakes it. “Then it's official. Let's go, the boys are probably already waiting.”

We leave the locker room and, yes, they are waiting. “What took you so long?” Flynt asks “Hurry up, the next batch of shuttles is about to take off.”

That's my cue. I dart ahead on my rollerblades and quickly reach the docks, picking the shuttle that looks the least full and standing in the doorway so there's no way it can take off without us on board. The driver is just about to get annoyed when the others catch up, and we quickly board before he comes out to yell at me. Some people just have no chill factor.

It's lunch break, so the shuttle is still pretty cramped and there aren't even four seats left, much less next to each other, so we end up standing. I think now's a good time. I cast Iris a meaningful glance, and once she understands and gets Flynt's attention, I tap Kyle's shoulder.

“What is it?”

“Well, I was thinking, and Iris totally agrees, that some cake in celebration of our exemplary victory would be just the the thing right now.”

“I suppose you have a point there.”

“Yeah, and, I was wondering if you could perhaps treat the team, seeing as you're ...”

He sees what I'm getting at. “Relatively wealthy?”

“Pretty rich. Same thing. I mean, your family has a castle. An actual, centuries-old _castle_ , so you gotta have a lot of money too, right? Oh, and by the way, you totally have to show us that castle during the holidays. It's probably got like a hundred rooms, doesn't it?”

“It's not that big. About 70, 80 rooms. And as for your first request, my – admittedly very generous – allowance is not intended for such… frivolities. However given everyone's performance in battle, for my friends I suppose I can make an exception.”

“Yay! You're the best, Kyle.”

I turn to Iris and carefully study her expression. Looks like…

“So, Flynt,” I move closer to him, as much as the cramped space allows “I hear as the team leader you were gonna treat us all to celebratory cake?”

“Yeah, but didn't you just ask Kyle-”

“I did, but good news for you, both of you guys get to keep your money, because in fact Iris will be paying.”

 

“And here you go.” The baker hands me the last plate and Iris grudgingly pays while Flynt and I carry everything to a table next to a window and once the others are with us dig in.

This is the best thing ever. How did I not know rainbow cake existed until now? It's a pretty normal, soft cake in a stack of 7 different colors, held together by a white cream that tastes just a little sour, something like cream cheese, I think, with a hint of lemon. It's absolutely delicious, even though the different colors of cake all taste the same. But it shouldn't be too hard to toss in some different flavorings in the cake mixtures, should it? Strawberry is an obvious one, as is black currant. Then lemon, apple, or should the green one be lime? But we can't have lemon and lime. Banana?

“Hey, guyf, help me out here. I need feven-” I swallow the cake before continuing “-seven different flavors to match the seven colors here.” After a heated debate we come up with strawberry, orange, lemon, apple, blueberry, banana 'cause there's no other blue fruits and I like bananas, and currant.

Sounds tasty, now I'd just need someone to bake it. “Hey, Iris, I know you like cooking and-”

“Bake it yourself, Neon.” Welp, that was a clear answer.

“Hey, Flynt...”

Neither of the others is intent on any fancy baking, especially not while we're in Vale, but Flynt says he'll consider doing a cake like that for my birthday if I'm a good girl. I have no idea what he's getting at, I'm at all times an absolute paragon of- yeah, right.

Just as I finish the last bit of my second piece of cake – this one out of my own pocket – Iris remembers she wanted to get Kyle seen by a nurse, so she goes and drags him off, leaving just Flynt and me. He wants to go back to the Colosseum and watch the remaining fights, to see some of our potential opponents for the next round and stuff, but I don't think I could stand sitting around right now, I just had two large pieces of cake, all that energy has to go somewhere.

So we part ways for now, Flynt heading back to catch the next shuttle, while I'm gonna try to find a skate park of some sort, and if not I'll just go skate in the city, main thing is I get to stay in motion.

After a quick look around the fairgrounds and finding nothing interesting, I start in direction of Vale city, picking up speed and easily curving between the people, ignoring the angry shouts I get. Never miss a beat… Never miss a beat... Leaving the gate of the Beacon grounds I have no real idea where I'm going, but that never stopped me before, I'm bound to find something.

...Or someone. That hoodie with the green hair protruding from the front looks familiar. I swiftly approach the girl walking down the street looking like she has no idea where she's going either and she flinches a bit when I zip right past her and turn around to come to a stop facing her.

“Hey there! I remember you, we ran into each other in the Colosseum.”

“More like you ran into me.”

Oops... I rub the back of my head with a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Sorry 'bout that, my match was about to start.”

Now that I'm getting a bit of closer look at her, she's got green eyes, a bit darker and greener than her hair and some weird make-up in the shape of two rectangular black bars on her cheeks, and she looks about my height, though I guess without my skates she might actually be a little taller. She's wearing a mauve sweater under her blue hoodie and a set of black protectors on her knees, elbows and wrists.

Looks like my kind of girl. This could be good. I extend a hand. “I'm Neon, by the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some OC side characters in this one, but don't worry, I know some people have reservations against OCs, so there won't be too much focus on them. 
> 
> Iris is named after the Greek goddess of the same name, the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods (like a female counterpart to Hermes), and her last name is derived from the month May(and she's wearing white because Neon already has that rainbow thing going on, and as a reference to a certain other internet phenomenon).  
> Kyle can be derived from Gaelic, possibly meaning "a woody region" or from the word *cill*, "church" or "churchyard", his last name Saint is very obvious. And if "Goodwitch" still fullfills the Color Naming Rule, then so do these two names.  
> Darcia Glowe is from "Dark(ness)" and "Glow", easy enough, also a shoutout to my younger sis for helping me come up with some of the side OCs.
> 
> Rainbow cake is indeed a thing, which I didn't know until I googled it while writing this. I totally want to try it myself, but while it isn't too complex, it seems like it'd be rather elaborate and time-comsuming. Well, I'm sure I'll get around to making one some time (yeah, right.)


	3. She was a Skater Girl (Pt 3)

***Reese***

“I'm Neon, by the way.”

...Well, what do I have to lose? “Reese.”

I shake her hand and Neon immediately goes on. “So, you're into skating too, right?” I nod. “You should totally come along, then.”

To where? “Are you from Beacon? Do you know if there's a skate park around here?”

“No and no. But we're gonna find out. Come on!”

Neon starts moving and after a split second's hesitation I follow her, taking the chance to take another look at her. On her top she has a green and a purple button, and under it a purple bra is visible. She has green eyes and a small, red heart tattoo under the left one, her hair has some bright blue streaks in the front, and she's wearing a white collar with a bell on it – just like a cat's.

“So,” Neon breaks the silence a moment later “you're on Team ABRN, right? What school are you from?”

“Yeah. We're from Haven.”

“What's it like there?”

Good question. “Well, I guess... it's a bit cooler than Vale. And from what I saw during our flight here, there's a lot more green around, Haven is kind of sitting on the edge between a wasteland and a frozen tundra. What about you? Where are you from?”

“Oh, right. I'm on Atlas' Team FNKI.”

Wait, what? “Hang on. _You_ 're from Atlas?”

“Yeah, is that a problem?”

“No, it's just… Not what I'd expect, from the reputation Atlas has for discipline and stuff.”

“I know, right? That gets a lot of people off guard. Three quarters of our team are, like, freethinkers and stuff, and we had to work pretty hard to keep that, but unlike the actual military military branch, Huntsmen and Huntresses do get a bit more… leeway, as long as we do follow our higher-ups' orders and show results.”

Makes sense, I guess. After all, a big point of Hunter Teams is the individuality of their members, if everyone were the same, that'd be no different from any other military.

I nod. “Makes sense. By the way, do you have any idea where you're going?” Neon seems very confident in the direction she's heading, but she does strike me as one of those people that would confidently stride into a pack of Beowolves, as long as they feel they're on the right track.

“Nope.” She grins “But that never stopped me. Let's go and ask...this guy. Hey! Excuse me!”

Neon suddenly darts straight ahead towards a passerby who flinches and almost drops his shopping bag when she slides to a stop in front of him. However he does apparently point her in the right direction, as she smiles and returns to me.

“I was almost on the right track. It's that way.” She points in the direction and starts moving.

“...That's opposite from where you were going.”

“See? Almost.”

We find our way to the open-air skate park easily enough, and while it doesn't quite reach the one we have in Haven on the school grounds – though that one also doubles for some training purposes – it's outfitted decently enough, with the majority of the park a large bowl, with a halfpipe, some ramps, stairs, funboxes, rails, the works. There's a few other people skating, mostly boys, but it looks like there'll be plenty of space.

 

“There we are,” Neon says, then turns to me with a grin “Hey, Reese.”

“What?”

“Try and catch me!”

With that she hops down into the bowl and starts running, creating a translucent rainbow trailing behind her as she picks up speed. Rounding the outside of the area after a moment Neon turns around – while still skating at the same speed, not bad – and waves to me. “Come on! You'll never catch me!”

Now she's asking for it. With one practiced motion I take my board off my back, activate it, drop it into the bowl and hop on, chasing after Neon. I cut straight through the middle, jumping over a ramp on the way and quickly catching up with her, but just as I'm about to get her, Neon sticks out her tongue and speeds up even further, just barely dodging me.

I accelerate too, but Neon manages to stay just a bit ahead of me, while still finding time to grind on rails and stuff, and even do a pirouette at one point. She's definitely pretty good, maybe even as good as I am.

While chasing Neon around the bowl I notice some of the boys have stopped skating and are talking and pointing in our direction. How very mature, have they never seen girls in a skate park? Whatever, just ignore them, not the first time that's happened either, and generally most of the guys shut up very quickly once it becomes clear I've got all of them beaten.

With another burst of speed I manage to catch up with Neon, skating right beside her along the wall of the bowl. “Got you!”

“Hmm...Nope!” Neon shoves me outwards while also sharply turning and fleeing in the middle of the area as my momentum is enough to carry me over the side of the bowl and a fair bit into the air. She doesn't look like it, but she seems to have some raw strength too.

Fortunately this is one of my easier exercises, and – mostly for style points – I grab one side of my board and effortlessly guide my fall to land in a curving piece and do a u-turn, using my momentum to catch up with Neon once more.

Just a little closer... I'm almost beside her, but just as I try to grab Neon's arm she jumps onto a box, and by the time I register the obstacle and try to jump I'm way too close, and my board crashes into it, sending me flying. I can't bring my aura up in time and painfully hit my shin on the edge of the concrete, but then, thanks to years of practice, reflexively put one arm forward and manage to break my fall into a roll, only to come to a sudden halt when my back hits some other obstacle. “Ow!”

By the time I orient myself and make sure all limbs are still attached, Neon has noticed what happened and stops next to me. “Are you okay?”

...That's a rhetorical question, right? “Ow. I'll be fine.”

Even though I did a proper roll, and I was wearing protectors, there's still a massive scrape on my forearm, as well as a small bloody line on my shin that's gonna turn into one hell of a bruise, and I'll probably get a bruise on my back where that block so rudely stopped me. All in all, I've had far worse.

Neon extends a hand to help me up, and I take it and then dust myself off. “Thanks. This is nothing. Just keep going, I'll be two minutes to drink a bit, I'll be right back.”

“'Kay.” Neon nods and takes off again while I make my way to the bench where we put our bags, and get out the small bottle of water I practically always have with me. Almost empty... Depending on how long we're gonna stay here, I'll have to refill it somewhere.

I look up when I hear Neon shouting cheerfully, apparently she talked some of the boys that were watching us into a race, those poor fools. I keep sitting for a bit and watch the race unfold. As I thought before, none of them would be a match for me, and so neither are they for Neon. She effortlessly leaves them behind, and still messes around with grinds and fancy jumps on the way.

It's kind of remarkable; I don't know how much, if any, lunch Neon had after her match, but I'm starting to notice even that amount of ice cream wasn’t really enough for me. I have no idea if I could keep up all those stunts while seemingly bursting with energy like Neon still does.

From the looks of it the apparent leader of the boys is not particularly happy about them losing so badly and starts arguing with Neon, who still remains just as cheery as the whole time, and I think she's actually intentionally provoking him.

A moment later the two of them start a one-on-one race, and while Neon still stays ahead, this guy manages to keep far closer behind her. Ostensibly Neon is about to win when one of the other guys suddenly comes up to her from the side and yanks her tail with enough force to send her off balance and falling on her butt as the leader overtakes her and reaches the goal first. “Whaa! Ow!”

That is _so_ not okay. I jump onto my board and make my way over as Neon gets up rubbing her backside.

“Hey! What was that for?! I totally would've won!”

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” the guy that pulled Neon's tail sneers. “Not! That's what you get for pissing us off.”

“Well, you're a jerk.” She turns to the leader who is still carrying a wide grin. “I demand a rematch.”

“You don't get to demand anything.”

“Why? Because I'd beat you?”

“Don't you get it?” The leader's grin vanishes. “You'd better be gone from here.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“That's supposed to mean we don't want _your kind_ here.” He almost spits out the words.

Okay, that's it. I pick up speed, skating right past Neon and jumping over the edge of the bowl, then while still in the air getting off my board, folding it behind my back and landing on my feet right in front of the leader. “Hey, just what do you think you're doing, asshole?” I point my finger at him, almost jabbing him in the chest and he takes a step back.

“What do you want? We're in the middle of something.”

“'Something' being cheating _and_ racism, and you're gonna stop it!”

“Oh, you want to defend your Faunus girlfriend, that's cute.”

“Shut up. I'd defend anyone from pointless racism, especially against cheap assholes like you, Neon easily would have beaten you!”

“Reese, that's really not necessary.” Neon tries to stop me but I'm not having any of it.

“It is. I'm not gonna put up with any racism, and neither should you.”

“That's rich.” The leader grins “But this is _my_ turf, so what are you gonna do?”

“Well, I would have suggested talking this out like civilized people, but I realize Neon and I would be all alone then, so I'll put it into words your limited mind can understand: Leave her the fuck alone, or I'll break your legs. Got it?”

He looks dumbfounded for a moment then visibly flares up his Aura. Would you look at that, a Huntsman, or probably in-training judging from his age, and for given values of 'man' and 'asshole'. If he's the only one around, that would explain why he's acting like the head honcho here. Also this means I won't have to hold back nearly as much, because it's gonna be a fight between Hunters, not a foreign Huntress “beating up civilians”.

Any intimidating effect he hoped for is completely lost on me, and after a moment the leader gets angry. “Who the hell do you take me for, bitch? Don't fucking mess with me. Boys, get her!”

I quickly take a few steps from the edge of the bowl and take a basic fighting stance. It's four plus the leader on one, why don't I ever stop and think for just a moment? It's not like I couldn't take them, but I'd rather do so without my weapon and maybe even aura to avoid seriously injuring any of them, sending people to the hospital doesn't make for a really good impression.

Maybe if I just hurt one enough, the others will back off. Aaand there we have our lucky victim. With a shout one of the boys charges at me, readying his fist behind his head in an incredibly telegraphed attack.

Bitch, please. As he strikes I stop his fist with my left and easily direct it to the side, then jab out with my right palm, hitting him in the solar plexus with enough force to send him falling over backwards gasping for breath, but hopefully without doing any permanent damage.

The others immediately take a step back, this could be my chance. “Hey, dumbasses, if you don't even have your Aura unlocked, you better back off, or I can't guarantee you won't get injured.”

The guy on the floor gets up and quickly backs away from me. “Sorry, Jay,” he says to the leader. “That chick is way scary, you're on your own here.” Called it. Cowards.

With a frown Jay steps into the circle formed around the two of us by his flunkies. “Useless bunch. You're gonna regret this, bitch.”

“Oh yeah? Come at m-”

“Stop it!” Neon interrupts me. “You're totally overdoing it!”

“Am not. These assholes need to be taught a lesson. And besides, I'm just defending myself, it's totally okay if I break his legs as long as it's self-defense.”

I'm not sure if that applies to actual broken legs, but quite a while ago I learned you can get away with a lot of stuff, as long as you make sure the others attack first.

“Shut up!” Jay snaps. “I'm not done with you, Faunus. I'm gonna beat up your girlfriend 'in self-defense', and then it's your turn.”

“That's not gonna happen.” I counter “Now bring it!”

With a growl Jay duly makes the first move, unlike his minion attacking with a proper strike, but I block it nonetheless and counter with a fist to his face that is of course stopped by his aura and he tries a wide swing with his other arm that I just duck under and land two quick hits against his chest.

I shift and take a step to the right, aiming a backhand strike at Jay's face that he intercepts with his lower arm, followed by a jab with the outer edge of my other hand that connects to his neck.

However I ended with my legs in a somewhat poor position, and Jay notices before I can correct it, turning in my direction while aiming a low kick at my exposed knee, and I can't get my leg completely out of the way in time, taking the hit to my shin instead.

Ow. Jay does have some strength there. And he'd just like that throw out the sort of move that can permanently cripple people? Do they not teach kids any decency at combat school? Well then I'm not gonna play nice anymore either.

I take a step back, and another, changing my supporting leg, before shifting forward with a side kick towards Jay's face, forcing him to defend by covering it with both of his forearms and still almost be knocked off balance by the sheer force behind my attack, and I keep using my forward momentum to just just ram my elbow against his defense, pretty much breaking it open and unbalancing Jay further.

immediately follow up by shifting my stance and striking with my left held slightly like a claw, and my palm hits Jay's sternum – I could have gone for the eyes, but I didn't wanna risk his Aura giving way at that exact moment, – finally knocking him onto his ass as I end with my feet on one line perpendicular to him, my left hand still outstretched and the right reflexively in front of my body, palm facing upwards. Just like Arslan taught me; I need to thank her for that again, her lessons in hand-to-hand were pretty helpful once more.

I resume my normal fighting stance as Jay gets up with a groan. “Is that it?” I try to put on a condescending tone, but I don't think I'm very good at it. Also this guy pisses me off more than anything. “Obviously you got no chance, so just give up, apologize to Neon and then fucking leave her alone. Got it?”

“Do you seriously think you can just pull that shit on me?”

Oh, he looks really pissed now, does he not know when to give up? “What are you gonna do? There's no shame in admitting defeat to a stronger opponent, so just do that.”

“Shut the fuck up! You're gonna bleed!”

Jay pulls something from his pocket that looks like a handgun changing into a short dagger and lunges at me. That's not even a custom weapon, nor particularly threatening. I quickly dodge backwards, but before I can even start to counterattack and maybe break his wrist, which would be completely in proportion now, a large red spiked disk embeds itself in the ground between us, stopping Jay in his tracks.

Who? That's not Neon's, is it? It's not, as the owner of the weapon, a young man with spiky red hair and a pair of purple markings under his eyes, walks up from the side and retrieves it with a snap of his fingers, causing it to disintegrate into flames and then reappear in his outstretched hand before he attaches it to his back.

“That's quite enough of you,” he says to Jay, who quickly tries to stash away his sorry excuse of a weapon.

“That bitch started it!”

“Do you think I'm blind and deaf?” The man hardly has to change his tone to make his distaste very clear. “I've seen everything, it was you. It's always you.”

“I've given you the benefit of doubt long enough,” He continues ”I figured boys will be boys or whatever, but there is a line somewhere. Your blatant display of racism alone would be reason enough, but I will _not_ be having weapons drawn in my skate park. This is far from your first offense, but sadly the first time I'm reprimanding you, so I suppose for now it's just a one-week ban for all of you, not counting today. And if I catch any of you with a weapon in here again, or even thinking of acting like a bunch of racist idiots, ever again, you can make that lifetime for all of you. Got it memorized?”

“You can't-” Jay tries to protest but the man just cuts him off.

“This is a private park, and as the owner I make the rules, so I damn well can whatever I want. Have you punks ever stopped to think what kind of impression you're giving? Vale is hosting the Vytal Festival right now, we have visitors from all over the world, and instead of its best side, you're showing racism and unsportsmanlike behavior to these two visitors. Just disgraceful. Now get lost, the lot of you! Or I will sic the police on you. Or perhaps a local Huntress, seeing as this one here beat all of you that easily.”

“Wait, you're a Huntress? Seriously?” Jay looks rather stumped. “But you don't even have Aura.”

The man beats me to my answer. “She just didn't need Aura to beat you. 'Cause that's what makes a Huntsman or Huntress. Not their Aura and weapons, but their skill, and the willingness to stand for others. Don't they teach you anything in school these days? Oh, whatever, just get lost. Now.”

“Alright boys, you heard the man,” Jay relents “Let's get going.” He turns to me “You're lucky you got away this time.”

“You mean you're lucky he stopped you before I got to break some of your bones in self-defense.” Jay is about to return something when the owner of the park just makes him fall silent with a glance and he hurries after his gang. So much for that.

I turn around. “Let's go, Neon. Sorry about that, I guess I did overdo it a bit.”

“I think you got me wrong there.” The owner stops us before we can even start to leave. “The ban only extends to Jay and his cronies, you two are free to stay here.”

“Really?” Neon positively beams. “That's so nice of you, sir.”

“Oh, please no. If someone your age calls me sir, I'll feel way too old. It's just Lea. By the way, the two of you are from Haven Academy, right?”

“I am.” I nod. How'd he figure that out? “Neon's not, though.”

“Nope. I'm from Atlas.”

“Atlas? You...don't look the part, that's for sure.”

“I get that a lot. Must be my fabulous style.” Must be your everything.

“Still, you were half right.” I say “How'd you know? Or was that a lucky guess?”

“No guess.” Lea shakes his head. “I've just been around. I know the styles of Atlas and Shade, so it was mostly by process of elimination. And not to sound presumptuous or anything, but this is the largest skatepark in Vale, so if you were from Beacon I would have seen someone of your skill level here before. So that more or less only left Haven. Or an oddball from Atlas as the case may be.”

Neon grins. I think she enjoys throwing people off guard or subverting their expectations, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

“You're in Vale for the Tournament, aren't you?” Lea continues “Then I again apologize for this idiot Jay giving you a poor impression. I suppose this is my fault to some point, I should have warned him and his gang long ago to keep it down. But I made this place because it's the kind of place I'd want to go myself, and I don't really like so-called authority figures, so I may have been too lenient with Jay in turn. But don't worry,” he adds after a moment and turns to Neon “When I saw them picking on you, I would have stepped in, if your friend hadn't already been on her way.”

“Hm?” Neon tilts her head, picking up on something completely different. “You're a skater yourself? Care to race us?”

Lea lets out a short laugh. “I like the sound of that, but I'm afraid I'm not in the shape for any skating right now. A few weeks back when we had Grimm inside the city an Ursa mauled my leg, and I'm still recovering.”

Indeed, the left leg of his trousers is bulging out at the knee, like he's wearing a bandage or one of those knee brace-thingies. It's weird how I'm totally fine wearing my protectors, but the one time I had to have one of these I hated every second of it. And the accident hadn't even been my fault, that fruit cart clearly took my right of way.

“Oh.” Neon winces as she notices Lea's leg “I'm sorry.”

But he just waves it off “Nothing you have to do with any of it. And the doc says I'll be back to 100% in the end, I just can't strain it in the meantime, so no skating for me.”

“Aw man, that really sucks. I don't think I could stand even a single day without rollerblading.”

“I can imagine.” Lea grins “But I'm gonna survive that little break. In the meantime I'm taking over some of the supervisors' shifts, which is exactly what I have to be getting back to now.”

He gestures over his shoulder in the direction of a boy on a longboard doing some relatively tricky and inappropriate jumps. “See that one? He's been trying to impress one of his classmates for a while now by pulling more and more dangerous stunts, if someone doesn't tell him to slow it down eventually he's gonna need get hurt and then he can find out if the girl likes him falling on his face too. I heard some people like guys with scars, but... If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna put a stop to Romeo before he winds up needing stitches. You two have fun. Good bye.”

“Thanks, good bye.”

“Bye~e!” Neon waves as Lea turns around and heads towards the boy who just now barely lands right side up from his jump. I could do that one blindfolded, but I guess I have more experience than him, and I'm using the correct board; these kind of jumps are not the kind you do on a longboard.

“Hey, I was wondering,” Neon says “About what Lea just said. Do you like scars? I mean, are you 'into' them or something? Or are scars like a total turn-off? Or neither?”

...That's a pretty good question. I never really thought about that. This is part of the 'tough, rugged Huntsman' stereotype, but the women falling for that are very much a stereotype themselves, one that I don't even remotely fit. I actually have a fair share of scars myself, none really dramatic or disfiguring, just scrapes and stuff accumulated throughout my life. I only unlocked my Aura a few years back, and even then I don't always have it up when skating.

Protectors still only do so much when you really wipe out, and even then my worst ever accident hardly left a scar, but probably would have killed me without my helmet. This way I only got concussion and a tiny scar that's hidden under my hair anyways, while the helmet was absolutely shattered. Oh, right, Neon asked me a question.

“No idea, really. But now that I think about it, I guess a scar is the result of a wound, right? And surviving that wound and getting through it is a sign of strength, so if we extend the scar to symbolize that strength as well, then I guess I sort of like scars, or maybe more respect them. Something like that.”

“I see. Do you have any actual battle scars yet? I mean from Grimm, not from some stupid training accident or something.”

I shake my head “None so far. No one on our team, in fact. We always got lucky enough to avoid any major injuries while out on missions.”

“That's good. One of my teammates already got a scar. He defended his partner from a Deathstalker, and its tail broke his shield _and_ went straight through his armor – as in plate mail – and into his arm. All of us made it out, but Kyle got that scar, and the injury handicapped him for weeks, all of us were pretty beaten up, really, and the whole thing was just a mess anyways. And-” Neon cuts herself off, actually looking downcast about something. Did I bring up something? She was the one who started the subject, though.

Either way I hurry to get her mind off it. “Nevermind that. Hey, Neon?”

“Hm?”

Neon looks up as I grab my board off my back and start running towards the edge of the bowl. “Catch me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Yay, racism and bullying, fun stuff! Not. Yea, not absolutely everything is gonna be happy and shunshine (but for the very most part it will). Spot the callback to Volume 1 of the series proper in that scene.
> 
> Also there's a pretty clear (to me at least) KH reference in here; as well as a little bit of foreshadowing about Neon, try to find them.
> 
> I'm not a skater of any kind, so I hope I didn't mess up any of the terminology too bad (if there happens to be an actual skater or similar reading, please PM me or tell me in a review if I made any mistakes). There likely won't be too many detailed skating scenes, in part because of this, and because skating (as a lot of sports I'd wager) is much more interesting to do for yourself than read/write about for any amount of time.


	4. She was a Skater Girl (Pt 4)

***Neon***

We continue to spend pretty much the entire afternoon at the skate park, and apart from the time I remind myself of that one disaster of a mission, we have a great time. The kid Lea pointed out to us pulling off stunts way above his level does indeed end up wiping out pretty bad, even though it looks as if he's mostly okay. Poor boy, I hope the girl he was trying to woo at least knows to appreciate his bravery if nothing else. They eventually leave the park hand-in-hand, so I guess that's a happy end right there. How nice.

I myself crash at one point when Reese makes a stupid pun and I miss a beat – and the curve –, almost faceplanting against the back wall of a halfpipe and stopping myself with my arms and knees instead, but still falling on my butt from the bounce, much to Reese's amusement.

In turn she ends up messing up some stunt in a narrow fullpipe; I don't see the specifics, only the result of Reese more or less flying out of the pipe and stopping her fall with an admittedly pretty good roll. It could almost look planned, if not for her board hitting her in the back a moment later.

But still none of us gets seriously hurt and we only leave the skate park when Lea asks us to because he wants to close up for the day. I'd say we're gonna be back tomorrow, and I think so does Reese. But for today we're back to Beacon and, looking at the time, eat dinner, so I lead the way back.

On the way we chat about all sorts of things, though Reese doesn't seem to mind the short silence either when I think for a moment, formulating my words and discarding them again before finally speaking up. “Hey, Reese? ...Thank you.”

“Hm?” She looks confused “For what?”

“For, you know... standing up for me against those… bullies.”

“You mean that guy Jay and his gang of racist assholes? Well, natch. Why wouldn't I?”

I let out a mirthless chuckle. “That's easy for you to say. You're a Huntress and probably could've beaten him with your hands behind your back.”

“Well, yeah. But so could you.”

“Sure I could.” Except I need my hands to fight while Reese could literally use her weapon with her legs and body weight.

“But I'm not the type for that,” I continue “And even then, it wouldn't help anything. At most I'd confirm the 'stupid, violent Faunus' stereotype. But that's not my point anyways.”

“Then what?”

“The point is you _did_ defend me. Often enough people would just stand by or quickly turn away and pretend 'I seen nuthin', officer'. Heh. Guess I'm lucky nowadays they don't spontaneously join in anymore.” That was far before my time, but still.

I force a laugh, but Reese isn't buying it for one second. “That's not funny. At all. If anything, it's a testament to how pathetic the situation still is!” She seems to pick up on my somber mood, but gets agitated instead. “Just because the situation is less shit than it used to, doesn't mean it isn't still shit. Any of this stuff should never have been happening in the first place.”

“Totally. But, I mean, you're a trained, armed Huntress, and most people aren't, so what are they gonna do against something like this?”

“Exactly the same thing! It's not like this is a special Huntress thing, that's just a bonus, but everyone should have the moral courage to stand up against assholes like that!”

I chuckle. “Yeah. In a perfect world... But let's be real.”

This sucks. Of course the one subject that actually gets under my skin just _had_ to come up. Reese is legitimately – and rightfully – angry, and I can tell our mood is pretty much taking a nosedive. We were having such a great time before.

I take half a step in front of Reese and turn around, forcing her to look at me. “You know what? It doesn't matter, there's only so much two of us can do. You were there, at this moment, and you defended me, and that's what matters, right?”

“Of course. I'd defend anyone against shit like that, never mind a… friend.”

Well, that was easy. I brightly smile at Reese. “Still, thank you.” I draw her into a quick hug, pulling back before she can even register it. “I mean it.” Wait, did she just blush a bit? That's adorable.

“But let's stop with that subject,” I carry on to preempt any awkward silences. “See the tower?” I point towards the highest point of Beacon, easily visible over the buildings of the city. “Think you can find your way to Beacon back from here?”

“Um, yeah?” I turn around and ready myself, and Reese seems to get the idea as I see her reach behind her back from the corner of my eye and hear her board unfold and activate.

“Race you!”

 

I end up beating Reese by just a few seconds, but a win's a win.

“Heh. Not bad,” she pants “I won't hold back next time.”

Suuure. She's just out of breath as I am. “I'm always up for a rematch, you know.” I grin at her, then lead the way to the dining hall. I never notice while I'm at it, but now that I'm winding down I'm actually rather parched, that bit of cake I had wasn't nearly enough lunch.

Kyle usually prepares his own food, and Iris tends to eat with him, and I only now notice Flynt messaged me half an hour ago saying he'd get dinner then, which means I'm on my own. Well, not entirely.

“Hey, what about your Team?” I ask Reese as we stop in the entrance of the hall, who gets out her Scroll to the telltale sound of new messages and checks it.

“Both Arslan and Bolin got hungry, and Nadir isn't the type to say no, so they already ate.”

“Then I guess it's just the two of us?”

“Guess so. Let's find a seat.”

I get some cured salmon on toast, fried tuna and a bunch of sushi. Reese has a large pork cutlet, a plate of noodles and some green salad stuff, which she adds like an afterthought. We eat in relative silence because apparently Reese is just as hungry as I am and we're both too busy, well, eating and then getting seconds to actually talk.

I wonder if the Beacon students have food fights too. Of course at Atlas those are 'highly discouraged', but a few times a year they still happen, and when they do it's no-holds-barred. The last one went down just a few weeks before the Teams left for the Vytal Festival, and it was glorious. We can thank whoever of the kitchen staff thought that cream pies were a good idea for that.

On my asking, Reese says in Haven it's similar for the most part, except time and again even some teachers join in. Apparently, her Team was on the winning side, or more like _was_ the winning side, during the last one. As much as there is a winning side when just about everyone ends up covered in condiments and laughing. ...Now I really want to incite a food fight here at Beacon, but today the hall is already mostly empty, so it'll have to wait. But it _will_ happen before we leave for Atlas again.

After finishing dinner and not causing any food fights, – this time – we head towards our dorms, which are situated a bit away from the main building in what the people at Atlas would call strategically disadvantageous, but the rooms are actually a little bigger than back home, so I won't complain.

We go up to the second floor and Reese walks down a hallway, counting the doors until she comes to a stop in front of one, digging for her Scroll.

“So... I guess that's it for today,” I start, but Reese shakes her head.

“Unless you still have something planned for tonight, you may as well meet the rest of my Team. And besides...” she somewhat sheepishly continues “I was gonna watch a recording of your battle anyway because I was curious about your fighting style, and, um, now that you're here I was thinking you could maybe join me and... give a bit of commentary. If you don't mind of course.”

Does it make me a terrible person for thinking this otherwise tough, competitive skater girl getting flustered about something like this is kind of cute? But it's not like I have anything better to do, and it sounds interesting, I don't think I ever rewatched any of my battles from an outside perspective. Or at all, really.

“Sure, why not?” I grin and Reese opens the door, entering before me.

“Guys, I'm back!”

“Welcome back.” “Yo, Reese!” “Hello.” Her teammates, another girl and two boys, greet her. I close the door behind me and quickly look around the room. The entire rest of Reese's Team is here, spread across their beds.

There's a dark-skinned girl with blonde hair wearing a traditional-looking yellow robe baring one shoulder and a red sash around her waist over a black top and pants as well as combat bandages on her arms, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her bed. From her posture I guess she's meditating or something.

One of the boys is lying on his bed playing a video game on some handheld console. He has short black hair and is wearing a blue… vest, I guess, a yellow sash across his upper body and one shoulder, over-the-elbow gloves and gray trousers.

The last one is sitting on his bed leaning against the wall intently reading a book. He has _pink_ hair except for the undercut sides, which is black, and somewhat dark skin, if lighter than the girl's, and he's wearing a cream and yellow jacket over a black shirt and gray calf-length trousers.

“And who are you?” The other girl asks somewhat brusquely as soon as she notices me, and both she and the guy with the video game look at me quizzically, while the other one just continues his book unperturbed. I'm just about to say something when Reese steps in. “Everyone, that's Neon Katt from Atlas. Neon, meet the rest of Team ABRN. Our leader Arslan...”

“Hello, it's nice to meet you,” the other girl greets me in a more neutral tone.

“...Bolin...”

“Hey. What's up?” The black-haired boy sounds a bit more boisterous and nonchalant.

“...and Nadir.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” The pink-haired one looks up for a moment before returning to his book. Compared to his teammates, his voice is more low and measured and his choice of words seems kinda overly mannerly.

“Um... Hi. Nice to meet you all.” I smile and hesitantly wave, and Bolin turns back to his game, but Arslan keeps eyeing me.

“What's she doing here at a time like this, though?”

“Well, that's easy,” I say “Reese and I met in the city and went skating like the whole day, and then she was gonna watch the recording of my Team's battle from today, we won by the way, and so she asked me to tag along and provide a bit commentary, and here we are.”

“...Yeah, pretty much.” Reese just confirms while taking off her protectors and her hoodie, tossing them onto a chair, then dropping onto her bed.

“I see,” Arslan says “Very well.” And closes her eyes, returning to her meditation or whatever she's doing.

“Neon, you don't have to stand around like that.” Reese notices I'm still standing next to the door all dressed up and nowhere to go, and pats her bed besides her, sitting up. “Make yourself at home.”

I walk over and sit next to her as she fiddles with her Scroll and activates the wall-mounted flatscreen, bringing up the Team BRGD vs. Team FNKI battle.

Nadir puts his book down and Arslan also directs her attention to the screen, so I guess we actually have a bit of an audience, only Bolin doesn't seem to care and keeps playing.

Their Team got kicked out already, so I guess there's no harm if I actually go into detail. If there were still a chance we'd end up fighting, I'd hold something back, but this is gonna be good. I grin as Reese presses the play button and do a sweeping gesture towards the screen. “And now, ladies and gentleman, enjoy the show!”

Reviewing it, the fight actually was much shorter than it felt at the time, not much more than five minutes. I guess time really flies when you're having fun. There were multiple cameras around, but at times I'm still completely out of the picture thanks to the trees I was running around in, so those moments I just retell from memory, though it's not like too much except me running circles around at my opponent, taking potshots and taunting her actually happened there.

As the recording finishes, I look around to see the others' reactions. Bolin is still playing and Nadir's expression is hard to read, but Reese looks impressed by my skating skills – as she should be –, and Arslan seems curious about something. Before she can ask, though, Reese preempts her with exactly the inconsequential sort of detail I would've picked up on first too.

“Neon, how are you creating those rainbows behind you? ... _Why_ are you creating those rainbows behind you?”

“'Cause I can.”

“But they have no use whatsoever,” Arslan adds “so why bother?”

“Why not? It looks cool. Just consider it part of my personal style, or something.”

“...I think it suits you,” Reese says after a second of deliberation. “You even _look_ loud. But that doesn't explain _how_ you do it.”

“That's a secret.” I grin “Maybe I'll tell you if you manage to beat me one day.”

“Hey, I caught you twice this afternoon!”

“Yeah, and so did I. And I beat you racing back to Beacon. So that's 3-2 for me.”

Reese raises to protest but she can't really argue that. “Fair enough. So that just means I have to beat you twice in whatever, right?”

“Pretty much.” I nod, and Reese grins.

“Well, that's easy enough. You're going down, kitty-cat.”

“Oh yeah? You're on. Bring it!”

Reese seems about to jump up and challenge me to a… whatever, and I'd take her on of course, but Arslan's voice makes us stop in our tracks. “Girls, not in here. Also not today anymore, 'kay?” She still sounds totally pleasant, but it's also clear that wasn't really a question.

Reese drops back on her bed, putting up a halfhearted protest. “But-”

“It's getting late, and I'm pretty sure there's a curfew here. And besides, in the dark Neon would have a clear advantage thanks to her eyesight, so it would be unfair. Just postpone it until tomorrow.”

“Well, okay.”

“She's right,” I add “I want to beat you fair and square after all so you can't bitch about the fight being stacked after you spectacularly lose.”

“We're gonna see about that!”

“Tomorrow,” Arslan cuts in and Reese sighs.

“...Tomorrow. You better be ready.”

Looks like my first assessment was right. Exactly my kind of girl.

“So, what now?” I continue after a short break signifying the matter is settled, for now.

“Oh, right,” Arslan says “Before we got sidetracked I wanted to ask about your fighting style, Neon.”

“Sure, what is it?”

“We saw how effective your provoking and separating one enemy from the group was, but what if it doesn't work? What if the opponent just fails to react to your taunts?”

“Like you think you would?” Reese beats me to the question, and the small shift in Arslan's expression tells me she was thinking just that.

“Sis, please.” I give her a smug grin. “You're underestimating me. But let's just posit _somehow_ not a single opponent falls for me.” I'm pretty sure I could get even Arslan if I figure out what buttons to push. “Which I've never had happen, by the way. I bet out of the four of you, I could at the very least get Bolin and Reese to chase my tail within 20 seconds.”

Bolin looks up when he hears his name, but doesn't care enough to ask, while Reese just grins. “Guilty as charged. But I'd be your downfall.”

“You wish. There's no way-”

“Wanna test it, kitty?”

“Anytime, greenie. You wouldn't even catch me.” She's actually pretty good at this too, even if it's not as much the taunting as the very real challenge beneath it.

“Be real. I'd-”

“Again. Tomorrow.” Arslan shuts us down before we really can get going. “Neon, mind getting back to my question?”

“'Kay. I guess if somehow my usual tactic really doesn't work there's always plan B.”

“For us normally plan B means twice as much explosive Dust as plan A.” Reese interjects and Arslan chides her “No, it's not. ...That's plan C at the earliest.”

“Right,” Bolin adds from the side “'Strategy' and such.”

“Well, my plan B doesn't always have more Dust, but it has more annoyance,” I continue “My Team leader always says it's my best and worst quality at the same time. I'm told I can be _incredibly_ aggravating. So if I don't get one target, I'll just harass them all. Sure you can ignore me making fun of you, but try ignoring nunchucks to the face. I still don't do that much damage, but I'm fast enough to avoid getting hit too much, and I can be a great distraction to take heat off my teammates or create an opening for them to attack.”

Arslan studies me for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I can imagine that. But your strategy applies to fights with Hunters, or generally intelligent opponents. How do you deal with Grimm?”

“Just like that, actually. If anything it's easier. Grimm are pretty stupid, so I don't even have to make fun of them, I just need to be loud and bright and run around them, and they'll come for me. And besides it's not like I can't mop up the weaker stuff on my own too, there's almost no Grimm who can even catch up with me. It only gets dangerous when I don't have any room to skate. Fortunately that only really happened once, and that mission was… not fun.”

And there's that familiar ache in my arm again. Is it ever gonna go away?

“Missions are not supposed to be for fun,” Nadir says, the first thing I hear from him besides the greeting. “They are to do good, are they not?”

“Yeah, sure.” I shrug “But that doesn't mean you can't still have fun on the way, right?”

“Exactly.” Reese agrees “That's why I became a Huntress, really. The helping people and stuff is just a bonus.”

I guess for me it's the other way around, sort of. I want to fight for those who can't fight for themselves, but I don't think I could keep it up if I couldn't also find a way to make it fun, with all the things that happen out there.

“I know we're here for the Festival and all,” Reese goes on “but I wonder if we could still take on a mission here, I'd really want to fight alongside you, Neon.” So would I.

“You'd end up turning it into a kill count competition, though, am I right?” I say and Reese nods.

“You bet. And you bet I'd win.”

“You're on. I'll be sure to remind you when you lose.” I'm actually not so sure about this one, guess we really need to find a bunch of Grimm somewhere to settle that one. I wonder if Beacon has something similar to Atlas' Caves of Ordeal, and if we can get in there.

Reese, I, and to an extent Arslan and Bolin spend a while just chatting about all kinds of stuff, and along the way after some prodding I get to see the recording of Team ABRN's battle, which I missed the majority of because I was getting ready for our own match, as well, much to Reese's embarrassment. And after seeing her get knocked out I can see why, not really the smartest move she made there. Then again, this afternoon at the skate park Reese did something similar, trying to catch me and totally missing that box until she fell over it, so maybe it's just her being very… focused. Or, y'know, a hothead through and through.

The rest of the battle it gets relatively clear Team ABRN was simply outmatched pretty badly by their opponents of Team RWBY, those girls definitely look like material for the finals. Also I'm pretty sure that Blake girl is a cat Faunus too, that bow isn't fooling me.

Apart from their opponents just being better – because there's always someone better somewhere – Team ABRN looked pretty good in their fight. I wonder how they'd do against Team FNKI. Because, let's be real, Reese and I _will_ end up having a battle somewhere down the line, so might as well get the others in on the fun. I can't really tell how that'd turn out, though. My intuition tells me it'd be pretty close for either of us, but we won't know for sure until we try.

We keep talking pretty much the entire evening until at some point, as we're winding down anyways and even I'm starting to get a bit tired, Nadir cuts in after being practically silent the entire time. “I... really don't want to be rude, Neon, but it's getting rather late, so, um, please could you leave us for today? I want to go to sleep soon.”

I check the time on my Scroll and, yes, it is rather late already, I probably should get to bed myself if I want to catch the first fight tomorrow. “Yeah, you're probably right.” I stand up and stretch my back with a groan. “Guess I'm off for today, then.”

“Thank you,” Nadir says and Reese just nods.

“All right. See you tomorrow, Neon. Looking forward to our next duel.”

“See you tomorrow. But I'm still not gonna lose to you.”

“You keep believing that, as long as you can!”

With a grin I open the door and step through, waving over my shoulder. “So, quite a while longer. We're gonna settle this tomorrow. Good night.”

“Good night, Neon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: A bit of a sweet friendship moment. Racism sucks a big, fat one. But don't worry, this isn't gonna be a recurring subject, the scene was needed for other reasons. 
> 
> Also there is a little bit more foreshadowing, I wonder if anyone figured it out already (though I hope not, at least not yet).
> 
> The Cat Faunus liking fish is a bit cliché, but what can you do? Fear not, there *will* be a food fight in time, and Neon is gonna make sure the entirety of FNKI as well as ABRN are present for it.
> 
> We saw some large TV game console, so I'm just assuming there is handheld ones too. And if not, Bolin's just playing Angry Nevermores on his Scroll. 
> 
> In the last chapter I had shielding Aura as something possible to turn on and off. I believe I saw the idea somewhere else before, and regardless, it only makes sense to me, seeing as permanently projecting a forcefield around the body has to drain some sort of energy (calories, or vaguely-defined life force, or the Aura itself just slowly depleting and only recharging when properly resting), so if they don't need the protection, people can just will it to turn off, just as (with training), they can will it to focus its healing on a specific area or injury. I may go into more detail on this in the story at some point, but for now, just chalk it up to artistic license. (And me needing a way to give people scrapes and bruises without them running down all their Aura first.)
> 
> This marks the end of the actual first "chapter". I originally had put all of this as one, but as was pointed out to me, that was way too long for one chapter, so I took it apart at the changes of perspective I had in there anyways. 
> 
> Sadly that also means I'll have to disappoint anyone expecting uploads of this size to continue at this pace, because this entire batch was already mostly done before I started uploading. However seeing as there are some people who enjoyed it so far (thanks for giving me feedback, by the way), I will do my best to finish the next chapter(s) quickly.
> 
> [I feel I should come up with some sort of signature goodbye, so insert one here]


	5. She was a Skater Girl (Pt 5)

***Reese***

“Reese, catch!” Arslan pushes her opponent's arms to the side with one hand and hurls the heavy, black ball in my general direction, and I bodycheck my adversary before shifting my board onto my back, leaping and catching the ball, landing into a roll and carrying the ball over the goal line, slamming it onto the ground for good measure.

“And that's another point for us! 3-1, c'mon, boys, pick it up!”

Bolin helps Nadir – whom I kinda knocked over making sure he didn't get the ball – up, and the two walk over towards us, picking up the ball. “Can we get new teams? The two of you together always beat us.”

“Well, yeah, 'cause we're awesome, right?” “Right!” Arslan and I exchange a high-five as the boys just frown.

“You still do not have to be quite so rough,” Nadir says “This is just for warm-up, no need to overdo it. Besides, aren't there rules against this sort of thing?”

“Funny enough, no,” Arslan says.

“Yeah, you just need to toughen up,” Bolin adds, patting Nadir on the back rather forcefully, which he registers with a cough. “Ow! Bolin...”

I have no idea who actually came up with the 'rules', as they may be, for our game, which is pretty popular at Haven, mostly just as a warm-up. We learned it from some upperclassmen early on, but I don't think I ever met the guy Calvinball was named after, if there even was one. Either way all that counts is getting the ball into some vaguely-defined goal, with full use of Aura and weapons, all other rules are either nonexistent or completely mutable. There's definitely no rule against roughing or whatever Nadir claims, because that would defeat the point if you ask me. But our Team quickly banned me using my hoverboard as a, well, board, because with that I was practically guaranteed to score once I got the ball, unless Arslan got a lucky shot with her rope.

“I think we can call it for now anyways,” Arslan says “We should all be sufficiently warmed up, so let's get going.”

“Reese, you're with me,” Bolin says as he walks over to the bag Arslan brought with her, taking out a small flag with a round stand, then walking over to the other half of the field and I follow him. Time for some CtF, it looks like.

Most people are watching the first set of matches right now, and the training grounds are almost deserted – save for a pair of other Teams who look like they’re from Atlas –, so we could have a whole field for just the two of us, but that'd be just overkill, even on my board I don't normally need _that_ much space.

Arslan is with Nadir for now, which means she's gonna hold back again. Not that she really should go all out – not even I have too much of a shot at beating her when she does –, but if you don't push people a bit every now and then, they're not gonna get stronger either. I think I'm gonna take on Nadir after this and make sure to push him to his limit, Arslan is much too nice sometimes.

But first things first. Bolin sets the flag down in the middle of our half of the field and then stands in front of it, making a 'come at me’ gesture at me, and of course I oblige. As usual, the two of us are pretty evenly matched, and even the 1-1 we eventually settle on takes quite a while to reach. I head over to the other two and tag in for Arslan, who in turn goes to fight Bolin.

“Hey, how about this,” I ask as Nadir transforms his rifle into a sword and I jump off my board, taking it into one hand. “I saw this fancy tea house in the city yesterday. If you land a _real_ hit on me, I'm gonna treat you. Sound like a deal?” After a moment of deliberation he nods. Really? What was there even to think about. “Great. But just so you know, unlike our dear leader, I'm not gonna hold back. Now let's go!”

Our bout of training goes about as well as expected. Which is to say not that much. Nadir lets himself get driven backwards by me far too easily, and if I let up for a moment is too hesitant to quickly strike, even if I keep telling him I have a ton of Aura left so there's no way he'll hurt me.

I'm probably being a bit unfair to him, all things considered. It's not that he's a bad fighter per se, he's just not good with melee and fights against other Hunters instead of Grimm, that's like his one major weakness. I can't recall the exact title, but he is a scion of a very old and traditional family, so he's seriously well-mannered, educated, and has quite a few practical skills – including survival stuff –, but if you just run at him with a sword he kinda becomes like a deer in the headlights.

However, in turn, Nadir's actually pretty ace with his gun, doing some neat shooting at distances where I'd be lucky to hit the broad side of a barn. In fact he'd rather never use his sword and instead shoot all the things from a safe distance.

I don't see why you wouldn't go with a straight-up sniper rifle then, but Nadir says an assault rifle is much more versatile and that a sniper rifle would be too disadvantageous at closer ranges. And he really can mow down Grimm at point-blank range with it, except he lectured me once it's not actually point-blank, but should be called 'close quarters' instead, 'point-blank' being well over 200m for his rifle, according to the specs, and 90-something meters for my guns, something about bullet drop-off or whatever. Either way the thing really packs a punch, it's got high-caliber rounds or some such.

But sometimes bullets just won't cut it, or you run out of ammo, or need a blade to block attacks or whatever, so whenever we have time to train, the rest of us try to put Nadir on the spot and get him to step up his melee game. It helps some, and he definitely has improved since ABRN's formation, but he still has absolutely no chance of actually beating me in a melee duel.

I can tell Nadir is trying his best, though – besides the bit where he doesn't follow up on any of his strikes –, so I eventually go back on what I said about holding back and intentionally slip up, allowing him to get in a hit into my flank, which is of course completely stopped by my Aura.

“See? Told you you wouldn't hurt me. I mean, you couldn't if you tried. Had I actually ever hit you, your Aura would be out five times over by now.”

Nadir sighs. “I'm well aware of that. Which is exactly why we're training like this, is it not? But now it's just fair we focus on an area you need to practice as well. I'm sure Arslan brought some shooting targets with us.”

Ugh, shooting. The only shooting I actually do is at pretty much point-blank ...right, close quarters, range, I suck at reliably hitting stuff more than 20 meters away. I really only got the gun part of my weapon so I have _something_ to use at range, that doesn't mean I'm particularly good with it, though most Grimm are relatively large targets at least. In reality the number of Grimm I actually felled with the gun mode is probably still in the single digits, mostly I just annoy or distract them a bit before either someone else nabs the kill or I go in and slice them up in melee.

So yeah, I suck at shooting, and I'm too impatient to take the time to aim my shots even while practicing, and Nadir knows that. I'm pretty sure this is his way for getting back at me a bit.

Just then, as we're about to get some targets and set them up on the side of the field, we're interrupted by a familiar cheery voice. “He~ey, found you!” The rainbow in Faunus shape darts across across the training field, waving, and Neon skids to a stop right in front of me and Nadir. “There you are!”

“Hey, Neon, what's up?”

“Nothing much. That's why I'm here after all, the battles this morning were totally boring.”

“So you saw the matches?” Arslan asks as she and Bolin, having noticed we have company, stop their sparring match and join the three of us “How did they go?”

“Both went pretty boring.”

Arslan clicks her tongue in a clear sign of annoyance “I meant the end result.”

“Both very boring and foreseeable early on.” Neon is totally doing that on purpose, though I'm not sure it's such a smart idea pulling that on Arslan, she doesn't know her well enough for that yet.

“...Let me rephrase: _Who_ won the first two matches?”

“Well, why didn't you just ask for that? First Team SLTE [Slate] from Atlas beat Shade's Team AQMN [Aquamarine], they just wrecked them 4-0, and one of the guys even still was at 100% Aura when they won.”

“Shade lost again?” Arslan asks and Bolin nods “Yeah. That's five Teams lost now for them, and not a single win yet.”

“Actually there is one.” Neon corrects him. “The second battle, Team ALBT [Alabaster] from Shade beat Team LVND [Lavender] of Beacon. That fight was way dragged out and they ended up just winning by attrition, no one had more than 25% or so Aura left at the end. Like I said, boooring.”

“So you decided to search for me.” I say and Neon nods with a grin

“Exactly. I figured instead of watching boring battles, I could have my own interesting battle instead. I mean, you _do_ still want to know about my rainbow, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Well then you'd better beat me. Right now the total score is 3-2 for me, so you'll need to win twice in a row.”

“Heh, that won't be a problem. So, instead of skating or stuff I first propose a duel. Plain and simple, just like in the Tournament. First to drop below 16% Aura loses, anything else is free game.”

“You're on.” Neon twirls her nunchucks around and tosses them in the air before catching them. “Ready?”

“I will be keeping track of your Aura.” Arslan announces, taking out her Scroll. “Get into position.” As she registers Neon's and my Auras, the two of us walk to the relative middle of the field, standing a few meters apart, and I unfold my hoverboard, still keeping it in my hand.

“Let's go, Reese! Try not to fall off your board.”

“You should be the one watching out not to fall on your face, because you'll be going down.”

“You'd have to catch me first. Come at me, sis!”

“Oh, I will. Bring it!”

Ignoring our trash talking, Arslan raises a hand, then swipes it down. “Ready? Begin!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: It continues. Once more with thanks to my beta, Dongyrn. Not really much else to say here.


	6. She was a Skater Girl (Pt 6)

***Neon***

“Come at me, sis!”

“Oh, I will. Bring it!”

“Ready? Begin!”

As soon as ...Arslan, was that her name? ...whatever, lion girl, starts the match I dash straight ahead, leaving Reese just enough time to get on her board and jump up to block the swing of my nunchucks before kicking herself off backwards with a flip, immediately charging at me again. Game on.

I start forward as well, leaping into a roll to avoid Reese's high strike, and she overshoots right over me as I get back onto my feet and start skating, drawing a wide arc before returning to the offensive, gripping both parts of my nunchuck in one hand.

Reese does a sharp turn and comes right at me again, our weapons audibly clashing, but neither taking any hit whatsoever. Is this gonna turn into like a jousting match now?

Apparently not, as Reese steps off her board, taking it into her hands. Or, _in front_ of her hands, she doesn't seem to be actually touching it, at least not the sides. Fancy. I approach her again, twirling my nunchucks and striking for her legs, but Reese blocks the attack, and, yeah, she's not touching her board, it's just kinda levitating in front of her palms.

Reese counters with an uppercut with her board, which I deflect with the bottom of my nunchuck and then quickly jab past it, landing a hit against her chest with my left fist. Reese spins her board in front of her to drive me back, then follows up with a low kick, hitting my thigh as I slide back.

I'm not in a very good spot. Reese's weapon has a bit of an edge against mine, and the terrain doesn't favor me either, there's absolutely no cover or obstacles to move around. Plus I never was that strong in a 1v1 anyways, I'm more of a teamplayer. Depending on how long she's been here training, Reese may have some of her Aura used up already, but I don't have all that much of that myself, so it's not as much an advantage as evening out the playing field.

But I probably should stick to my usual tactic anyways, if I can get Reese irritated enough to trip up, I still got this. We didn't even get time for any foreplay, what little we had we wasted on ordinary trash talk. However what I do is no mere showing off, it's an art. Reese is warily observing me, waiting for me to make the next move, so I guess I have a few seconds. What to do...

“Hey, what's with that black stuff in your face? Did no one ever teach you how to use make-up? Eyeliner goes _around_ the eyes, not under them!” First try, and Reese doesn't fall for it. At all.

“I don't wear make-up. This is called eyeblack, and it's used by _serious_ skaters and other athletes.”

“Well, then it's good I'm not being serious. Because you're certainly not giving me a lot of reason to.”

“I'm gonna give you a reason! Get serious or get hurt!”

Bullseye. With a growl Reese jumps on her board and rushes at me, and I can just barely get my nunchucks up to block her slamming down on me on her board, but then she splits it into two halves and practically kicks through it, hitting my upper body with enough force to knock me over backwards with a yelp, though of course my Aura blocks any actual damage.

I roll over backwards and jump up, just in time to see Reese's next attack coming, dodging out of the way of her recombined board and blocking the kick aimed at my face with my armguard. I quickly counter with my nunchuck, but the swing barely grazes her leg, doing next to nothing.

Reese turns around and I start in the opposite direction, hoping to get her to chase me. It works and I lead her into a chase, circling around the field, but there's no features I could use to my advantage, nor is Reese likely to tire out soon. Plus she's almost keeping up with me, so it's no use.

Never miss a beat... Never miss a beat... Just as we finish our second lap I suddenly swerve to the side and abruptly brake, striking backwards, and judging from the sound Reese runs straight into the attack. I immediately spin around and dart past her once, twice, three times, landing a hit with my nunchucks each time, before she manages to catch herself and block the next one, replying with a kick to my side, which I only somewhat manage to cushion with my forearm.

Reese sweeps her board around herself in a circle, then jabs at my neck with the edge of her hand, and I block with one arm before retaliating with a high kick with the opposite leg, forcing Reese to duck and dodge backwards.

“Hey, you're actually a pretty good skater. So why are you using a skateboard? Don't you know those are just toys for kids? Rollerblading is where it's really at!”

“It's a _hover_ board! Also...” Reese renews her assault, attacking with a flurry of blows of her board, slowly driving me back as I block with my nunchucks and armguards and still take some chip damage. “...can your skates do this? Didn't think so!” Well, she's right about that.

I manage to land a low kick against Reese's leg and follow up with a side kick against her board, giving me enough room to jump backwards into a flic-flac and create a bit of distance.

I can't see the Aura numbers, but my intuition tells me right now I'm losing. Let's try to even the odds a bit. I twirl my nunchucks then grip them both into both hands and bend them, activating the Dust with a low hum and a crackle. Orange. So it's Lightning, good one.

I've always got a selection of Dust cartridges with me to have whatever element I need at my disposal, but if it doesn't matter, I just load my nunchucks with whatever without even looking too closely. It's obviously a gamble if I suddenly need to activate them, but that's what makes it so fun. Kinda like a box of chocolates... except a lot more weapon-y and possibly explosive. So not actually chocolates. It's not like I can eat too much chocolate at once anyways, except white one. Where was I going with this? This time I lucked out on the draw, lighting is gonna be rather handy against Reese's weapon and fighting style. Let's go.

I run towards Reese but slightly veer off at the last second, striking at her in passing. As she blocks with the edge of her board, my nunchucks spark and wisps of electricity licks across Reese's board and hands, draining just a bit of her Aura. Just racking up residual damage like this may take a while, but as long as I'm halfway careful it's a reliable – if not that exciting – way to win this.

I think Reese can charge her board with Dust as well, but it doesn't look like she has any with her right now, and even then, to neutralize lightning she'd need lightning herself, or like earth.

I press my advantage, not letting up and quickly attacking with both my weapon and kicks and punches, forcing Reese onto the defensive. She manages to hold her ground well enough, but when she counterattacks and hits my shoulder with her board, I manage to land a strike on her arm, delivering a jolt of electricity that makes Reese grimace in pain, even through her Aura.

It's not like those few thousand Volts are enough to be actually dangerous, though. I would know, after managing to shock myself a few times when ironing out the kinks of my weapon, as well as during that other incident involving a sleep-deprived Iris thinking it'd be a great idea to commandeer an ice-cream truck to supply all of Atlas' students. Lucky we got that cleared up before anyone got seriously hurt, though the headmaster's office smelled of bleach for _months_. Anyways, that bit of a shock won't hurt Reese, and if the thing is anywhere close to decently built, it won't even hurt her board.

“So, how do you like that Lightning Dust?” I ask with a grin “Was it ... _shocking_?”

“...” Reese's pointed silence is practically audible.

“What's wrong? Say something, or are you all thunderstruck?”

“...Really, Neon? Puns?” Reese answers only after several seconds.

“Really. And here I thought you were all silent in shock and awe.”

“Seriously, stop it.”

“Don't you like my puns? Would you rather continue our _electrifying_ battle?”

“Shut up!”

Wow, someone really doesn't like puns. With a cry Reese sends her board flying towards me with the broad side first. I easily deflect it to the side, but it accurately rebounds in Reese's direction anyways, as she runs at me, grabbing the board and swinging it around herself once before sweeping it towards my leg in a rather telegraphed move, and I actually have enough time to jump over the attack and aim a high kick at Reese's face, which she of course blocks with her board.

Before Reese can capitalize on my vulnerable position, I use my other foot to kick off of her chest, sending her backwards to the ground while I do a clean backflip and easily land on my feet.

I leave her just enough time to get up before attacking again with a wide swing of my nunchucks, but when Reese parrys with the broad side of her board, the moment the two weapons make contact, the board glows and with a low hum takes on the same color as my nunchucks while their light visibly dims.

I reflexively jump backwards before trying to register what just happened. I think her board just drained some of the Dust from my nunchucks, somehow. “Hey, that's cheating!”

“Is not!” Reese protests “I didn't even know it could do that. ...Cool. I mean, I did design it to be able to take in Dust from an outside source, but I didn't think it could drain another weapon like that. Say, what form of Dust do you use in your weapon, and how does the infusion mechanism work? I'm really curious to see how this could happen.” Oh, great.

“Hey, how about you nerd out later? We're kind of in the middle of a fight.”

“Oh, right.” With a grin Reese jumps onto her – now supercharged – board and runs right at me with a spinning attack. I just barely block it with my nunchucks and take a quick step backwards as Reese hops off her board and continues the attack, and I manage to land a clear hit on her leg, her parry coming too late and too slow, but she grits her teeth and pushes through, jabbing her board against my chest and following up with a side kick to my stomach that sends me flying.

“Waah! Ow!” I fall down and hit the back of my head on the ground, but it's not so bad, and I quickly get up with a backwards roll, immediately holding my weapon in front of me in case Reese tries anything funny. But she doesn't, and just stands there with a big grin. Come on, it wasn't that bad. Sure, nice hit, but I still have Aura left, so I can keep going. “It's not over yet!”

I grip both halves of my nunchucks and grip them together like a baton or something, then run at Reese but at the last moment swerve around and attack her from the side with a series of jabs and short strikes. She defends against the barrage with her board reasonably well until I suddenly kick with my left leg, aiming for her thigh and forcing Reese to leave herself open to block the attack, hitting my shin with the edge of her board.

Jeez. Good thing I'm wearing my protectors, or that would've been pretty painful, Aura or no. Also good thing they're not just ordinary skating gear, or they wouldn't take this sort of punishment for even a single fight.

At first it was kinda surprising but on second thought perfectly logical that Kyle is a pretty adept metalworker. I mean, someone has to keep his armor in working order after all, and after my old protectors got ruined during a mission he offered to upgrade my new ones, turning them into legit armor pieces, even if they're of course not as tough as actual plate mail. Still, they turned out way handy numerous times, just like right now.

Before Reese can react, I hit her shoulder with my nunchucks, but she ignores the attack and does an uppercut with her board that forces me to jumps backwards, then follows up by continuing the motion, circling her board around herself diagonally, and jabs at my upper body, and I just barely twist out of the way, pushing the board to the side with my forearm.

As I shift my weight to prepare my counter, I stumble just the smallest bit, but that moment off-balance is already enough for Reese to push her offense, raking me with a whole bunch of quick strikes. I can't block every single one, and end up taking a handful of chipping hits on my Aura.

But Reese's assault also leaves her pretty unguarded, and just as she pulls back from a strike I find an opening and quickly shift forward, pushing into her as I strike with my elbow. However instead of forcing her backwards like I'd hoped, my strike hits the middle of Reese's board, and it separates into two halves, leaving me stumbling forward as I fail to encounter any resistance yet fall short of actually hitting her.

Reese circles around to the side and drops the two halves of her board as they start shifting into their gun form, aiming a blow of her palm against the center of my chest. I manage to deflect it from hitting my solar plexus, but the impact combined with my already somewhat shaky position is enough for me to stagger, giving Reese enough time to – somehow – return both of her pistols to her hand with just a gesture and start firing at me. How did she do that?

I convert my remaining momentum to dart forward, and start outwards before falling into a large circle around her as Reese keeps firing at me. She doesn't seem to be too good of a shot, though, as I only take a few relatively minor hits. Iris, and probably Flynt too, would have easily blasted me down by now.

As the sound of her guns stops I come to a halt too, to see Reese transform her guns back into board parts, and throw them at me with a flick of her lower arms, and they recombine in flight, the whole board coming at me rotating edge first, and I get my nunchucks in the way just in time, but the impact still makes me reel backwards.

The board rebounds towards Reese just right for her to get on it and quickly do a sharp turn, charging me and jumping up before bringing her board crashing down on top of me. I parry with my nunchucks, pushing against the the board with both hands, but suddenly Reese grins and taps her heel onto her board, and the Lightning Dust in her board discharges with a loud crackle, blasting right in my face. “Eep!” That alone might have been enough, but Reese is still bearing down on me, so as soon as my arms weaken, she crashes her board into me, slamming me pretty much straight into the ground while she bounces off and easily lands, then skates over next to my head and grins at me.

“That's it!” Lion girl announces from the sidelines “Neon's Aura is below 16%, Reese wins!” Aw, man.

“See?” Reese says as she holds out a hand and helps me up “Told you wouldn't be a problem.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: A nice, long battle scene. These are pretty difficult to write for me, I hope I struck the proper balance between readability and fluidity.
> 
> Sadly I didn't have any good idea what Neon's Semblance could be, so she's not using hers, but Reese is; what exactly her Semblance does may be expanded later.


	7. A Stranger I Remain (Pt 1)

***Arslan***

“Neon's Aura is below 16%, Reese wins!”

“See? Told you wouldn't be a problem.” Reese helps her adversary up with a triumphant grin, who tries to play it off.

“Psh, that was just the equalizer, you still need one more. Plus you got lucky this time, 1v1 duels were never my strong point.” That much was obvious, also from her battle we saw yesterday.

“That wasn't luck, it was superior skill. Right, Arslan? How much Aura did I have left?”

“Superior skill or no is not for me to say.” This is not that easy to compare, skill isn't just one-dimensional, after all. “But you had 37% Aura left, after starting with around 80, Neon was ultimately left with 8.”

“That speaks for itself,” Bolin agrees. “Sorry Neon, but when she stops messing around, Reese is actually kind of competent.”

“Hey! What's 'kind of' supposed to mean? I can't recall the last time you actually beat me when I stopped messing around.” Bolin's following silence coupled with Reese's slightly smug expression pretty clearly spell out that answer is 'never', and we all know it.

“What about her?” Neon points at me “Have you ever seriously beaten her, Reese?”

A single time, relatively shortly after our Team was first formed, I may have taken that loud girl with the needlessly fancy weapon lightly at that time, but after that no longer. “Once.”

My answer comes very quickly, but Reese shakes her head with a grin. “Nu-uh. It's twice, thank you very much.”

“It's not, that battle didn't count.”

“So counts. Just because you didn't see the moving van coming.”

How could I see a moving van falling out of a window of the dining hall coming? _Why_ would I _ever_ see a moving van falling out of the window of the dining hall coming? Still, Reese is never gonna live that 'victory' down, try as I might. “That victory was not legitimate,” I protest, even knowing the answer.

“Why not? Shouldn't a Huntress always be prepared to deal with outside interference?” That's what I taught her, yet half the time Reese doesn't abide by it herself. “It's not like we specified any other rules than the Aura threshold beforehand.” Tournament-style rules were highly implied, but never mind that... I suppose I should just give her that victory, but my pride won't let me without at least a token protest.

“What was that about a moving van?” Neon perks up “That sounds like an interesting story.”

“'Interesting' is one way to put it.” I say. “We're still not sure just what that whole incident was all about.” And as is the case with schoolyard stories, the details have been lost to retellings and embellishment anyways.

“Yeah.” Reese agrees “But it still makes for one hell of a story, so listen up. According to the best of our knowledge, it started when Skye, one of our freshmen from this year, got high because she ended up taking way too much cough medicine...”

Reese begins recounting the tale once more, no doubt intending to highlight the moment where I got pinned under aforementioned moving van and expended enough of my Aura for her to just sucker-punch me afterwards to claim victory. After checking the time I walk over to collect the flag Reese and Bolin used for their training and round up the other utensils we used, storing everything in our gear bag, which Nadir then picks up without me even asking. What a gentleman. If you stop to think about it, that notion is actually a bit sexist, but there's no way I'd hold that against Nadir, he's just doing what he learned growing up.

“...and that's the reason man-portable siege equipment is explicitly banned in Haven's inner city,” Reese finishes. And while I doubt all of this is exactly what happened, this particular regulation does indeed exist. Though Reese's story got some upgrades since last time, I think the hovercraft full of eels was new. Either way Neon looks suitably entertained, as does Bolin, even if he's bound to have heard that story just as often as the rest of us before.

“All right!” I clap my hands to get everyone's attention. “Now that story time is over, I suggest we go eat some lunch. Neon, you're of course welcome to join us, if you don't prefer to eat with your own Team, that is.”

“Nah, two of my guys are a bit... peculiar about their eating. Okay, one is, and the other goes along with him because she's a sweetheart and really likes him, I mean _likes_ him. Whatever, for lunch it tends to be each one for themselves half the time anyways, so I'm sure Flynt won't be mad if I stick with you guys for today.”

“Very well. Anyone any suggestions as to where? Except the ice cream place from yesterday,” I add, and Reese, who was about to say just that, falls silent again.

“Oh, I know!” Neon is half bouncing on her heels “There's this bakery here that has some really awesome cake!” I had been hoping for actual, nutritious lunch, some meat in particular, and not the sweet stuff again, but a look around the rest of the Team shows they clearly agree with Neon's plan. Oh, well.

“Lead the way.”

“Sure!” Neon darts ahead and only after a few seconds seems to realize the rest of us isn't wearing skates and pauses, waiting for us to catch up and falling in line next to Reese.

“Hey! I just remembered this cool story that happened at Atlas a few weeks after our Initiation, and I think it even beats the one with the Beowolf in the frilly dress Reese just told.” Frilly dress? I heard it was a tutu. “So, in like our third week at Atlas, there was this tinfoil-hat – no, literally – guy that was sure 'they' were out to get him, and so he...”

On our way to the bakery Neon tells that tale of a highly unlikely series of events, accompanying it with grand gestures and spoken sound effects, much to the amusement of Reese and Bolin, and even much more reserved Nadir is clearly smiling and laughing along. I have to admit the story is pretty entertaining, if even more improbable than our Flying Creep incident Reese mentioned.

It's kind of fascinating. We only met Neon yesterday, but she's getting along great with the entirety of our Team already. Well, Bolin is relatively easy to approach anyways, and to an extent so is Reese, especially since the two share their biggest hobby, but for her to get Nadir out of his shell even just a little bit; quite remarkable. I guess I like her too, I mean, Neon is a very likable girl, I suppose she has what you'd call a 'magnetic' personality.

“...and then, just as he opened the door to see what the ruckus was all about, _Bam!,_ the cart came rolling right into him, and the whole room was _drenched_.” Neon continues the story and Reese and Bolin burst out laughing. I seem to have missed a bit there, and it's probably even funnier in context, but the mental image alone makes me chuckle. “But the best part is yet to come!” Neon continues “Remember the barrel of vegetable oil I mentioned before? As it turned out, in the meantime...”

Not even a minute later we actually have to pause for a moment because everyone is holding their sides and laughing too hard to go on.

This girl is quite something. She's just so earnestly positive and full of energy, it's admirable. And she and Reese really are a great match as well; even without their shared love of skating I could see the two getting along easily. Neon is even more energetic than Reese and just as competitive, and if last evening and this battle right now were any indication, the two are totally going to keep pushing each other. Which is kind of a good thing, I suppose, as long as they make sure not to overdo it and cross into the realm of recklessness. But I'm sure by now Reese is mature and responsible enough to- yeah, right. ...I probably should keep an eye on that, lest they drag the rest of their Teams along with them.

“...and ever since that day, everyone but the janitorial staff are forbidden from bringing cleaning supplies onto Atlas grounds.” Neon finishes her tale of... whatever the hell happened there.

“Heh, not bad.” Reese grins. “They actually changed the school rules because of you?”

“Yep. Apparently they just thought there was no need for that rule, because why would there? Boy, were they wrong. But your incident got an actual law changed, so I think you actually got us beat in that regard.”

“It involved a live – at that point – Creep hurtling towards the mayor at terminal velocity,” I add “so that's not too surprising.”

“Yeah.” Reese adds “The incidents that require new rules to be passed are the best ones, right?”

I refrain from any comment but Neon nods with a big grin, of course she would. “Totally.”

“But it's not like that rule even worked,” Reese continues “I mean, you guys remember the Ursa Ballista thing?” Yeah, that. At least that day I learned I fight just as good without clothes as with.

“We agreed to never talk about that again.” Nadir reminds her. He's probably the one who got it the worst in that one, but I'm still not too keen on recounting the tale of trying to get back in my locked room while the rest of the Team was away with nothing to wear but a smile – and the hoodie I took off the first jackass to fucking wolf-whistle after me.

“Ooh, I see.” Neon says “We had one of those too, and Iris said if I as much as mention the words, she's gonna find me and hurt me. ...It involved 40 pounds of mincemeat, by the way.” She lowers her voice for a moment before jumping right back to full volume. “But you didn't hear that from me. Oh, hey, we're here!”

We indeed arrived at a large bakery, and as we follow Neon inside she abruptly changes the subject to how she got out of paying for her cake the day before by making a bet with her teammate, and the conversation just drifts from there while we buy cake and sit down at a table next to a window.

Reese has – at her recommendation – the same thing as Neon, a large stacked pie with the layers in the colors of the rainbow. How absolutely appropriate. Bolin sticks with the usual, two slices of plain cheesecake, Nadir has an elaborate Black Forest gateau, and I get a piece of dark chocolate pie. Neon was right, the cake is good. It's not very sweet, but highly aromatic, and tastes not only like plain chocolate, but also cinnamon and some other spices. It's still no meat, though, which means I'll have to get my dose at dinner once more.

Still following the conversation, that has somehow shifted into a discussion whether paragliding or bungee-jumping is superior – clearly paragliding, by the way –, with one ear, I take a look around the bakery.

The place seems to be pretty popular, there's few empty tables, and I know some of the students here either from back at Haven or because I saw their battle in the last two days. As can be expected, many are with their partners or Teams, and it's exactly for that reason one of the few solitary figures catches my eye.

A red-haired girl wearing a red and white jacket and a black beanie covering her left eye is sitting alone drinking what looks like a milkshake of some sort and gazing off in the distance. I think she was on the Team that fought JNPR yesterday, with a sniper rifle, if I recall correctly. Why isn't she with her Team? As she notices me looking at her, I give her a brief smile, but the girl quickly avoids my gaze with a frown. Not a people person?

“You know what would be awesome?” Neon asks, the conversation having moved – or derailed – in another direction yet again.

“Free ice cream forever,” Reese says.

“Being able to breathe underwater.” “The power of flight.” Bolin and Nadir have their own ideas too, but all of these are rather obvious and maybe a little immature. A proper answer would be... It doesn't matter, actually, I don't think Neon was thinking of any serious answer either.

“A cake like the one we just ate, but with each layer having a different flavoring.” Called it. I didn't try the cake Reese and Neon had, but this idea sounds interesting, if a lot of work. “Say, can anyone of your Team cook?” Neon asks and Reese thinks for a moment before pointing at Nadir. She's probably right about that too; herself and Bolin can pull of microwaving instant food and make sandwiches, but that's about it, and while I can cook some things, it's limited to meat and some really basic stuff. Nadir however, despite it not 'traditionally' being a boy's task, nevertheless learned to cook quite well growing up, and he knows a pretty big repertoire of recipes.

“Nadir, right? You wouldn't happen to be interested in a little baking project?”

“Um, I...”

“Really, Neon?” Reese beats me to it “Why don't you ask your own Team if they want to do any overly fancy baking for you?”

“I already did, and all of them said no.”

“...Right.”

We finish off our cake, Neon somehow having fit in another slice in the time it took Nadir to eat his one, and once everyone is done, I speak up. “So, originally, the plan was for a whole day of training, but I somehow doubt Neon wants to join us for that.”

“Yep! But I'm just here for Reese, so the rest of you feel free to keep training.”

Yeah, right. “Change of plans, then. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow, rest of the day is free time.”

“Oh, thank you, wise and glorious leader.” Even a deaf man could catch Bolin's sarcasm. “But aren't we overdoing it a bit with the training? I mean, we're here for the Festival, we can keep doing what we're doing at Haven all the time when we're back at Haven.”

“We _were_ here to represent our school in the Tournament,” Nadir corrects him.

“And since we kinda blew that one,” I quickly add “we have to make sure we give a better showing next time. And that just happens to involve a lot of training.”

“Whatever. Yo, Nadir, let's go check out the fairgrounds. We didn't really get to do that so far because we were way late thanks to that unnecessary mission we just had to go on right before the Festival started.”

“Disaster aid is _not_ unnecessary.” I say, but Bolin just shrugs.

“But why require Hunters for that? We didn't even get to kill a single Grimm.”

“And we should be thankful for that,” Nadir counters. “Our task was protecting the workers, after all. Not every mission has to be only about combat.”

“Come on, let's get going!” Neon suddenly gets up, starting towards the entrance, and we quickly follow her. I take it her and Reese will be off skating or whatever, and the boys will go to the fairgrounds; I believe I'll do that too, then return to Beacon to do some exercises.

Outside the door Neon stops to get her bearings before looking in the direction opposite of Beacon and the fairgrounds.

“We're gonna be headed that way! What 'bout you?”

“The Festival.” Bolin points over his shoulder, and Nadir and I nod in agreement.

“'Kay,” Reese says as she activates her hoverboard. “See you guys later then.”

“Later. Have fun.” I give a brief wave as she and Neon turn around and take off, the latter waving over her shoulder “We will!”

Suddenly someone bumps into me from behind and I stumble forward before catching myself “Hey!” I turn around to see the same redhead girl I noticed before.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, and oh, she dropped her book. I reach down and pick it up a moment before she does, and as I get up and her gaze meets mine, she freezes. What's wrong? I take a quick look at the mostly-black book's title. _Ninjas of Love_. Oh.

“In public? That's pretty bold, sis.” I wink at the stunned girl with a sly grin “But don't worry, I won't tell.”

“I'm not your sis!” The girl just grabs the book I'm holding out to her from my hand. What is _her_ problem?

“Hey, Arslan, you coming?” Before I can reply to her in turn, I'm distracted by Bolin calling for me, and when I turn back around, the girl is already gone. Some people...

 

After wandering around the fairgrounds with the boys for a while I excuse myself and leave while Bolin drags Nadir along to some other stand or attraction. Heading back to Beacon I think about the best place to practice my forms.

Our room is obviously out because there's far too little space, also it's indoors. I could try the training grounds, but depending on how many Teams are there I might not be able to properly focus. In front of the main building there is some lawn and enough space, but also too many people passing by. I really wish I knew my way around the school, maybe there's a suitably large rooftop accessible somewhere; being closer to the sky for this would be nice. However after a cursory look around, I have no such luck and eventually settle on the lawn stretching behind the school connecting to a small park.

There is ample space, only a few people taking walks, hanging out or reading and enjoying the pleasant late summer weather. And best of all there’s a small river, its natural sound drowning out what little ambient noise there is.

I turn off my Scroll completely – something I consider very important, but my Team got annoyed before when they couldn't contact me at all – and put it, along with my rope dagger and bag, on the ground next to the trunk of a massive weeping willow growing right next to the river, then sit down cross-legged in its shadow with my hands open and forearms resting on my knees, and close my eyes.

Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in... Out... In... Out... The soft, yet dry grass under me. The murmur of the water behind me. The specks of warmth where the sunlight filters through the leaves above me. The aroma of the air, of summer and plants and life.

In... Out... Feel the all around me. In... Out... With every breath my _Qi_ ebbs and flows. In... Out... I move my arms off my knees, loosely resting them besides me, palms facing upwards, and open up myself. In... Out...

After however long – not that much, though, there was nothing troubling me or anything – I feel sufficiently at one with myself and slowly open my eyes and get up. In a state of absolute calm, I take a few more steps away from the tree and the river, look around to make sure there is enough space in every direction, align myself to have the sun in my back and slightly to the left so I'm facing north best as I can, and begin.

Stand. Breathe in... Step. Breathe out... Strike. In... Guard. Out... Counter. I know this basic form by heart, after practicing it hundreds of times, I could do it blindfolded. And I do, keeping my eyes shut and the feeling of my body all the more heightened.

In... Out... Every movement takes as long as it takes, I completely lose the passage of time. For that brief span, I only seem to exist as the motion, losing myself in every moment. Which is probably as close to nirvana as I'll ever get.

In... Out... There's someone here. I more feel the slight shift than hear them. I tend to get some spectators when I do my forms, especially somewhere foreign. In Haven by now I'm a familiar enough sight to most, and after I ended up putting some irritating dumbass through a wall, I'm also generally left undisturbed – and that one wasn't even intentional, he just walked in front of me at the wrong moment. But elsewhere a somewhat exotic-looking girl doing a half-dance half-martial arts thing is still something unusual.

It doesn't matter. As long as they don't distract me, I don't care much about spectators. In... Out... They're gonna get bored and leave sooner or later, or if there's something they want of me either speak up eventually, or wait for me to finish. In... Out...

“Um... Excuse me?” Very well. I hope it's important at least. And I think I recognize that voice from somewhere. I finish the motion and then revert to my initial stance before opening my eyes with one final deep exhalation. “Yes?”

It's that girl with the beanie from the bakery again, standing a bit to the right of me, and I turn in her direction. “Good thing I found you. Um... Look, I-” She's fidgeting with her fingers and staring at the ground in front of her. “I just... I'm sorry for acting so bitchy to you in the bakery, that was really uncalled for, and um... sorry.”

The girl waits for my answer with a somewhat hopeful expression and raises her gaze, but falls short of meeting mine – and end up staring at my chest instead. “My eyes are up here, you know,” I grin and the girl blushes.

“Uh- sorry...” She looks away for a moment before steeling herself and looking at me properly. As I step a bit closer to her, I can see she has grayish-blue eyes – at least the one eye not hidden under her beanie – and is almost a whole head shorter than me, and she still looks a bit flustered. “Don't worry about that thing in the bakery. It's okay, everyone has their off days sometimes.”

“Th-thanks...”

I extend a hand and give her a friendly smile. “By the way, my name is Arslan, of Haven's Team ABRN.” However the girl looks away again and on the contrary hides her hands behind her back.

“M-May. From... Shade.” Seriously, why is she acting so nervous?

“Is there something wrong?”

“N-no, I... I should... Ihavetogodosomethingbye!” May's entire face flushes and she turns on her heel and all but sprints towards Beacon, almost running down a pair of boys walking along the river hand in hand.

That was... a thing. If I didn't know any better I almost would've thought she was trying to ask me out. But there's no way... right?

Well, anyways, my form was almost done, and I don't feel like starting over, so I suppose I'll leave it at that for now. After a short finishing meditation, I take my bag, store my weapon in my sleeve again and turn on my Scroll to the notification of a missed call and multiple messages. I somehow took more than two hours, and by now the sun is visibly descending towards the horizon. As I head back towards Beacon I check the messages. Apparently the boys came up with some film they want to watch, and so they bought a bunch of coke and snacks and decided tonight is movie night. Reese is all for it of course, and so I would have been outvoted anyways, not that I really mind a movie night or something now and then, I just generally prefer a little more quiet.

Also Neon is tagging along, no big surprise, and she's bringing her teammate along. And apparently she went down the entire hallway of the dorms, knocking on doors and asking people if they want to join us. ...So much for quiet; good thing I just did enough meditation for today.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I wish I had a spot to meditate anywhere near as cool as Arslan found here. Also flustered May is cute.
> 
> New viewpoint character, check it, I hope no one missed the change and thought we were back to Reese, or you would have been horribly confused. The idea for a new perspective only came up while writing the chapter, because it just happened to work out, as well as tie into another plot thread nicely.
> 
> I was just short of literally naming one of the incidents they were discussing the 'Noodle Incident'. Also those won't be elaborated on further, because it's funnier that way, and the stuff you'll come up with to fill the blanks with is gonna be way better than anything I could write anyways.
> 
> I know Qi comes from Taoism and Nirvana from Buddhism, but in Remnant neither of these belief systems actually exist, so whatever philosophy Arslan is following can have both of these concepts. (Plus it's not like the people are literally speaking English, technically that's just a convention of the medium).
> 
> Btw, the title comes from a track from the Metal Gear Rising soundtrack, and its meaning may become a bit clearer come next chapter.


	8. A Stranger I Remain (Pt 2)

***May***

“I... I should... Ihavetogodosomethingbye!”

Stupid.

“Hey, watch it! Idiot.” The two boys just barely move out of my way in time. Sorry, my bad.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

Dust, that was so embarrassing. Why did I have to- Alright, calm down. I slow my step to a normal walk and try to take a few deep breaths, but it's no good. I ended up in the entrance hall, and I'm out of breath and I think my face is still a bit red, so I end up getting a few curious stares from students passing by. Always with the staring, all the time. My hand reflexively moves in front of my left eye, even though I'm already wearing my beanie, as always. Let's not be here any more.

I make my way up the nearest flight of stairs, then a few more before heading down a long, empty hallway. It was quite a stroke of luck finding that place when I was exploring the school a few days back.

Nolan and B recently became a couple, and I'm happy for them, I really am, but do they _have_ to be so up-front affectionate when we're in our room? That's one of the disadvantages of co-ed dorms. Really, no one wants to see the two make out.

...Actually, despite the fact that he has a girlfriend back at Shade, Roy doesn't seem to mind the show all that much. He did mention he... went both ways at some point, but then can't he just stick with girls? Can't they all? It's not that I'm interested in any of them, it's that two guys together _that_ way is just... they shouldn't- Come on, don't be like that. I don't have to like it, but they're still my teammates and friends, so I should be happy for the two having found someone, even if it's wrong. If they'd just tone it down a bit while others are present – which is why I'm here right now and not in our room.

I push open the glass door at the end of the hallway and step out onto the bridge connecting two of Beacon's towers. On the other side, instead of entering the tower, I carefully climb onto the railing and with a select application of Aura to boost my jump I don't even need my rifle to reach the edge and pull myself up onto the roof of the tower.

I circle around a bit before sitting down and leaning back, the roof pleasantly warm from the sun.

The tower's pointed roof has just about the perfect angle to lean on and to the outside dips below the edge, creating a nice footrest that makes sure I don't slide off.

And then the view... I can see all the way to Vale, and in front of that the Vytal Festival grounds, and off to my right an expansive forest tinged entirely in red. Forever Fall, I think, we did a short mission there a few days back to pass the time to the beginning of the Tournament.

This spot is just great. I have no idea if students are even allowed up here, but given that the only real way for anyone to catch me is for them to be up here themselves – or maybe with binoculars –, I think I'm pretty safe either way. This is probably the highest point in Beacon, and the whole area in a rather large radius – well, save for the central tower, but that one's the headmaster's office, I'm not even gonna try getting up there, that'd just be a whole lot of trouble _waiting_ to happen, no thank you.

I've always been drawn to climbing and high places, ever since I was little. Treetops, towers, cliffs, mountains, not that we have much of the latter two in Vacuo. Being high up somewhere always puts me at ease. Nothing but the sky above me, the sounds of the world below muted into next to nothing, far away from people and their stares. All alone, peace and quiet.

...And this is why we can't have nice things, least of all me, as my thoughts invariably return to the thing I ran away from this time. Arslan. And me making an idiot of myself. I guess the only upside is that there was no one else around to see me look like a fool, or you can just bet they'd all be talking about me right now, about how that weird girl with the beanie tried to ask out another girl, but then chickened and ran.

Okay, being realistic, most of the students don't know me, and likely won't ever see me again after the end of the Tournament. Including Arslan, so it won't even matter if I made an idiot of myself. Good. Then why does that thought bother me?

Because I want... Why did Arslan have to be so- What? Nice? That's all she did: Be nice and understanding after I was needlessly rude to her. Really, there's no way to blame _her_. Which means it's me. I mean, obviously. _I'm_ the freak after all.

It's times like this I hear the lure of the depth again. It's so easy. Just give in. Step over the edge, and fly, and never worry about anything again. Back then, shortly after... the incident, a few times I almost would have followed its siren call.

But I didn't. And I'm not about to now. That'd just mean I'd be running again. And I don't want to run anymore. That I keep saying, but I don't want to deal with this either.

I have to keep telling myself it means nothing. It has to. That's the only way to not be a freak. Or more of a freak, at least. Arslan was just trying to be friendly and it doesn't mean anything, to either of us. Now if I could just believe that.

What do I do if I don't want to run, but I don't want to face it either? I don't have the answer. I never do, it's what makes the abyss so alluring time and again. But as long as I believe the answer might be out there, somewhere, I'll keep resisting its call.

Still, sometimes I wonder. On that day, if it had been any of the others, anyone but me. If I just didn't exist, would it matter? To whom? The world? The world doesn't care. Not for me, nor anyone. Then does that mean it's all the same, if it was me or someone else? Maybe. Or maybe someone else would have been better off. Would not have been a freak.

Freak. Get lost. Weirdo. Cripple. But they're wrong, a little. I'll give them everything else, but I'm not a cripple. Despite my damage, I'm not broken. Despite their best efforts, I never was. If I had, I would have gone into the abyss long ago.

But can that alone be enough? Just the stubborn refusal to give up? Because in the end it changes nothing. It still doesn't matter if I exist or not. I don't have any dreams or aspirations, or even reason. I'm just doing what I'm doing to stop from thinking, for all the good it does. And I don't care if the Grimm or whatever get me at some point, in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter if one more Huntress lives or dies?

I've had all these thoughts before, hundreds of times. I'm just spinning in circles at this point, so my Scroll signaling an incoming message is a welcome distraction. It's Roy.

 _Where are you?_  
_On a tower_  
_K_  
_Care to come down from that_  
_tower and join us?_

 _This girl, Neon, is running_  
_around inviting everyone to_  
_a movie night in one of the_  
_rooms_

 _You in?_  
_If Nolan and B can keep their_  
_hands off each other for at_  
_least 5 minutes, yes_  
_I'll tell them_

 _Come on, they're gonna start_  
_soon_

As I move over and hop off the roof onto the bridge, then start making my way back, I get another message.

_Btw, we're gonna be in room 219, it belongs to a Team ABRN_

So much for movie night. After that just now, I can't...

I spend the rest of the evening alone in our room.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: May did not have a too pleasant childhood.
> 
> Welp, that got rather dark. This part was difficult to write, both for the subject matter and style I was going for, and because I can actually feel with May very well from personal experience (though I never had it as bad as she did), so any feedback on this one would be especially appreciated. Though if I may say so myself, I feel in the end it came out pretty well, I especially like the 'I'm not broken' bit.


	9. Tempus Fugit (Pt 1)

***Reese***

“He~ey! Whatcha doin'?”

The hand on my shoulder and voice right next to my ear make me start, and I look to the side to see Neon grin at me. “...A good morning to you too, Neon.”

“Mornin!”

I'm checking out the notice of the fight matchups for today, the final day of the Teams round, when the cat Faunus – somehow, while still wearing rollerblades – sneaks up on me. “The fights today?” “M-hm.” I nod, and Neon peers over my shoulder to inspect the leaflet.

         VRDN of Haven vs. PWTR of Atlas  
         CRLN of Beacon vs. VRML of Atlas  
         CLDN of Haven vs. FCSA of Shade  
         SFRN of Beacon vs. CNBA of Atlas

Of course I'm rooting for Haven's VRDN and CLDN, but other than that I don't know any of the other names, and don't much care for them. Neon might be interested in most of them, though, since there's 3 Atlas Teams fighting today – including against our VRDN.

“Hey,” I nudge Neon's side and highlight the the first battle of the day with my finger. “This one could be good.”

“Oh yeah, our boys from Team PWTR [Pewter] against your V-R-D-N... what's that spell out?”

“Viridian.”

“Right. PWTR vs. VRDN. Sorry to tell you, but Haven doesn't stand a chance, PWTR are one of Atlas' top Teams.”

“Well, so are VRDN. They're fourth-years, and even if their leader is pretty flighty, Valerie is also an excellent fighter.”

“Oh? So you think Haven is gonna win that one?”

“Of course.”

“Wanna make a bet of it? You're one behind again after all.”

Yesterday we ultimately tied in our races and stuff at the skate park, so with the win in our duel I was catching up, but then I just had to agree to let a game of rock-paper-scissors count later during the night. How the hell did Neon talk me into that one? I really should have gone to sleep far earlier. But if Neon wants to make a game out of this too, works for me. “You're on.”

”Great. By the way, did you have breakfast yet? There's still time before the fight begins.”

I shake my head. “I'm waiting for the others, they should be here any moment.”

“'Kay. Me neither. But I'm gonna need a moment, so you just go ahead, I'll catch up with you.” And with that Neon turns around and starts heading back up the stairs to the dorms. “And save a seat for me!”

Only a few minutes later Arslan and the others arrive and we head over to the dining hall. We're actually pretty early, so there's still plenty of seating.

“He~ey! How you doing?” For the second time in like 15 minutes someone comes up on me from behind suddenly putting their hand on my shoulder and almost making me spill my cereal.

“Jeez, is today 'jumpscare Reese'-day or something?” I complain, but I recognize that voice too and turn to the speaker with a smile. “Hello, Skye. I'm fine, how are you?”

“I'm great. And so is Keira.” The blue-haired, golden-eyed girl wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, baggy shorts and her asymmetrical armguards, only the left one extending over her upper arm too, gives me a brief hug and then waves to her girlfriend making her way over to us.

The taller gray-eyed redhead is wearing a dark vest over a short light gray dress and modesty shorts as well as black knee-high boots and the thick bracers she's wearing literally always, with a few thin wires attached to them running behind her back. I know they involve her Semblance somehow, but I have no idea how exactly.

As I greet Keira, Skye hugs Bolin next to me, then reaches over the table to also hug the other two best as she can without knocking anything off the table. She's like that, hugs for everyone, and Keira knows that and doesn't mind, especially as the two of them are a lot more... passionate about their relationship.

...As evidenced by the deep, long kiss they share a moment later. “Jeez, get a room, you guys,” Bolin says, “some people could become annoyed at the two of you making out like that.” Including that girl with the beanie over there looking away with poorly veiled distaste in her one visible eye. “I mean, not that _I_ mind, after all it's hot and- Ow!”

Bolin is cut short by Keira whacking him upside the head with one hand, the other still embracing Skye. “Shut it.”

“Hey, that was uncalled for!”

“Was not,” I say, and the two girls nod, “but maybe keep it down a little in public.”

“You sound like Tear and Rowan.” Keira says, and I guess their other teammates would be the ones to tell them that. “But you haven't even seen the worst of us yet.”

“Yeah,” Skye agrees with a sly smirk. “The night after we won in the first round, Keira and I got all kinds of-”

“They really don't need to hear that,” Keira interrupts her girlfriend with a faint blush. Funny, I always had her pegged as the more forward one about things like this.

“Oh, right,” I say, “Congrats on your win.”

“Thanks,” Keira says, “It's a shame ABRN got eliminated already.”

“Yeah, but what can you do? You two are gonna be in the doubles round, right?” Skye nods with a proud smile. “Then you go on and win one for Haven.”

“Got it. We should get back to the others, come on, Keira.”

“Yeah. Bye, guys.”

We all say goodbye as the two turn to leave. Wait... “Oh, one more thing, Skye.” “Hm?” “If you see your sister tell her to give her all in her battle, I have a bet running on victory for VRDN.”

Actually Valerie is only like Skye's half-sister or cousin or something, but they're easily as close as actual sisters, so de facto they are. “Can do. See ya.” “See you.”

Just as the majority of students begins to filter in, Neon gets there too, accompanied by her Team, finding four seats right next to us. “Hey guys! Meet my Team, Team FNKI. You already met Flynt yesterday, and these are...”

Apart from Neon and Flynt, whom we met yesterday during the movie night, there's another girl and a boy. Neon namedropped both of them at some point , but it’s nice to get faces to go with the names.

Kyle is a pretty impressive sight, standing over 2 meters tall and appropriately bulky, clad head to toe in dull gray plate armor and with his brown hair in a short, practical cut. If the armor were just a bit shinier and he had a helmet, he'd look exactly like the knight from a fairy tale. Also he seems a bit taciturn, yet eloquent _if_ he talks, creating a harsh contrast to the black-haired girl next to him.

Iris, from what I gathered a very close friend of Kyle's, is almost 2 whole heads smaller than him and way chatty and vivacious, if maybe not to the extreme of Neon. She's wearing a white suit with golden adornments and no sleeves and black sunglasses even indoors. She seems like a fun person to me, as does Flynt; only Kyle is a bit harder to gauge, but I guess he's gonna be okay too.

After a round of greetings and introductions we eat, chatting about various topics on the side. At some point Neon gets bored so she takes to launching cherries and grapes with her spoon for Bolin and me to catch with out mouths, and except for the one botched shot that hits Iris' forehead, the breakfast goes over mostly uneventful.

Until, after most of us are already done eating, Neon climbs onto the table and starts shouting over the din of the fully-packed dining hall. “Hey! Everyone! Listen!” After a few tries most of the noise dies down and everyone's attention turns to Neon. “Thank you. Now that I have your attention, I'd like to make a short announcement of utmost importance.”

Why am I getting this creeping feeling of doom? The gaze Arslan gives me tells me she senses the same; nothing good can possibly come of this. “Ahem.” After exaggeratedly clearing her throat, in one swift motion Neon takes a handful of tomatoes still on our table and tosses them in random directions towards the other students. Yep, called it. “FOOD FIGHT!” After a split second of stunned silence, all hell breaks loose.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the somewhat long wait for such a small chapter, the next two are going to be bigger. Also sorry for teasing the food fight and then not writing it, but I had a rather bad case of writer's block in regards to that scene, and I took almost a full week trying to come up with something before giving up. I do hope I'll get some ideas at some point, then I'll either go back and retroactively add the fight here, or just have Neon start another one down the line.
> 
> Any and all OC names comply with the color naming rule, even if I'm not gonna spell out every single one.
> 
> Speaking of which, the 8 Teams competing today all together form one big shoutout. And if you get it, from that context you can also logically predict the outcomes of all four fights. Anyone who gets all four winners right gets a cookie (disclaimer: Cookie may be metaphorical).


	10. Tempus Fugit (Pt 2)

***Arslan***

After the mayhem that Neon incited is brought to an end by the appearance of a teacher, the actual battles are almost about to start, so all of our Team and the rest of FNKI – as well as the other participants of our epic battle – hurry to catch the next shuttle to the Colosseum. The six of us actually manage to find the other half of FNKI and still get decent seats, having VIP spots reserved for all the combatants in the Tournament is certainly handy.

As Reese and Neon start trash-talking about which Team is going to win the first battle – our VRDN versus an Atlas Team, apparently the two have a bet running on the outcome – down in the arena Valerie enters before everyone else, as usual. She curiously looks around the Colosseum, waving when she notices us, and my heart skips a beat. Which is stupid, of course, but it looks like I still can't help it.

A good year ago, shortly after starting at Haven, 17-year-old me was completely enticed by this mysterious, almost otherworldly girl, so I ended up asking her out and we dated for a couple of weeks, but it just didn't work out, and we broke up by mutual agreement.

I'm mostly over it, but the black-haired girl with the elaborate pink dress is still oddly fascinating to me. For starters, I still haven't figured out how she moves, much less fights as gracefully as she does, almost as if she's floating on some imaginary wind, with that costume of hers, those oversized sleeves alone. Or what's up with her eyes, if it's just a genetic quirk, or some kind of disease, or an intentional modification. Either way, she can see perfectly well, even if most of what she actually looks at is... a bit odd.

Like right now, she's completely captivated by a butterfly that somehow found its way into the Colosseum, instead of paying any mind to her opponents that are lining up on the other side of the field. It's four boys, one in silvery gray plate mail, one wearing black leather armor, one with dark green robes, and the last one wearing almost casual green trousers and an orange shirt seeming just a little out of place.

Though maybe Valerie is in fact paying attention. It's impossible to be sure, but sometimes she would be just as flighty and easily distracted as ever, but then from the blue come out with a surprisingly sharp observation or suggestion, so maybe it's just an act. ...Then again she would also sometimes miss meetings because she got sidetracked by a pretty bird or flower, or even get distracted in the middle of the fight, among others, so to this day I'm not sure.

I suppose this seeming contradiction is part of what makes her so interesting. Well, on top of the rest of her personality; she's also a very positive, open-hearted and serene girl. It's a shame the two of us didn't work out. Or more like, she just didn't feel for me _that_ way. Too bad, really. I hear she has a boyfriend now, though I don't think I ever met him. But I guess I'm happy for her she's found someone.

Speaking of... I wonder if Reese and Neon are together. Or if they're going to be. They’re clearly getting along great and spending practically all their time together right now, and, I don't know, Neon seems just a little touchy-feely. Though maybe that's just how she is, just like Skye. And it's not like a friendship always _has_ to lead to romance. But I'm getting the feeling there may be more, maybe without the two themselves noticing just now. Call it a girl's intuition.

Because despite how it may appear, Reese actually isn't that much of a people person. Sure she can strike up a conversation and get along with people especially if they're Hunters or skaters – and Neon ticks both of these boxes –, but for her to actually open up to someone it takes a fair bit more. The first one or two weeks after ABRN's formation certainly were rather frosty, and only after our first mission as a Team – and a night spent next to each other at the infirmary after we got roughed up a bit during said mission – did my partner finally start to trust me.

And I can tell Neon got her to open up to her far quicker, so it's clear there's some chemistry between the two, though to what extent only time will tell. If they just stay friends, they stay friends, if they become a couple, good for them. I, for my part, am just content on my own for the time being. I have my Team, so I don't need anyone else; feelings just tend to complicate a lot of things anyways. ...Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Altan.

The announcer, well, announcing the Teams pulls me out of my reverie and I hear both Reese and Neon loudly cheering on their respective Teams. Looks like the battlefield for the round is half an urban area and half a rocky field with miniature rivers and geysers. From what I remember of Team VRDN, this is gonna be advantageous to them, though from Neon's commentary it sounds like it will for Atlas' Team too, meaning it adds up to a more or less even field.

Valerie is talking to her Team, either coming up with an astute plan on short order, or telling them about that butterfly she just observed, could be either. Seems like it was a productive Team meeting though, as all her teammates nod and then line up opposite to their adversaries, seemingly each picking their target with Valerie matching up against the boy wearing plate mail, the tallest of the group and probably leader, and curtsying to him.

“Go, VRDN! Beat those guys up!” Reese shouts, and of course Neon is not to be outdone “C'mon, Team PWTR! Kick their ass!”

...Ah, what the hell. “You've got this, Valerie! Show them what you're made of!” I join in and so does Iris “Go, Petros, you're gonna flatten them!” That's gonna be their leader. Is that the one Valerie is facing?

Before Reese can trump Iris again and escalate the whole thing into a shouting match, the announcer counts down, and the battle begins.

 

“See? I told you your guys had no chance.” Reese gloats once the battle is called, and Neon just pouts.

“I wouldn't call that 'no chance',” I interject “The battle was in fact fairly close.”

It really was, VRDN only won 1-0, with Valerie bringing the fight back from the brink with an impressive double TKO. Really, the whole battle was just spectacular, I suppose that's what you get when you pit two ace Teams against each other. Either of these would've absolutely demolished ABRN in a battle, we definitely still have a ways to go.

“Too close.” Iris joins in too “That one unlucky ring-out totally tipped the scales.”

“Not unlucky,” Reese protests “Superior tactics.”

And I have to agree with her. PWTR got an early lead via a pretty brutal TKO and was in a real danger of snowballing the battle from there, but after a 1-1 trade Valerie and Drake managed to send one guy out of the ring before Drake got taken out as well, and then Valerie pulled out all the stops and brought the battle home for Haven; in the end she had like 20% Aura left, so that one was _really_ close.

“Just deal with it, Neon. I win the bet, so we're back to a draw. Of course, if you want, we can bet on the next battle too, there's another Atlas Team in there, right?”

“Think so.”

“Yeah, VRML[Vermilion].” Iris adds. “I'm curious if the freshmen put up a better showing than PWTR just now.”

I suppose that would depend more on their enemy, PWTR just got unlucky; I feel they could have beaten 90% of all the participants, they just happened to be matched against the last 10%. Much like what happened to us.

“I hope so,” Neon says, “But no bet.”

“Spoilsport.”

Iris nudges Reese's side. “Hey, I don't know what sort of game the two of you are playing, but if want, I'm gonna bet you, say... for an ice cream?”

“Eh, sure, why not?”

“You're on. I bet on victory for VRML.”

“Then obviously I say C-R-L- whatever, the other Team will win.”

“Got it. Anyone else care to bet?”

“Aren't you getting a bit greedy?” Bolin asks, “Pass, I'll leave it to Reese to get ripped off.”

“I'm not getting ripped off! I just won the other bet.”

“Yeah, but the chance to lose one out of two bets is 50%, which is twice as high as the chance to win both, so you should just quit while you're ahead.”

I'm pretty sure that's not how probability works, but Bolin's point still stands, Reese shouldn't push her luck too much. Though I suppose as long as it's just about ice cream, it's innocuous enough.

The next battle is announced and begins, and ends rather quickly. I wouldn't quite call it a curbstomp, but right from the beginning the Atlas Team had a clear advantage, easily securing a victory and taking only a single casualty to what legitimately looked like bad luck.

“Yay! That's a clear outcome. Neon, you should've bet too, that woulda been an easy win.”

“Guess so, but I wanted to play it safe. It's not like I can’t just beat Reese in a race later to get back my lead.”

“You wish you could, kitty. I'm not gonna lose!”

“You keep saying that, and then you do so anyways, just admit I'm faster than you.”

“There's no way in hell...”

Aaand the two are at it again. It's sort of fascinating how the two can get so worked up about so little. And just a little dumb, if we're being completely honest, but I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on them, they're just having fun.

It's lunch break right now, and the plan was for us to spend the afternoon training anyways, I just wanted to see Valerie battle, as did Reese and Neon. “Team ABRN, listen up!” I give Reese time to get in one more remark and the others to pay attention before continuing.

“Like we agreed yesterday, the afternoon is for training, so now we're gonna get lunch and then get to it, let's go. Any of you guys wanna come along for lunch?” I ask Team FNKI, and Neon nods.

“Yeah. What about you, Flynt?”

“Sure.”

“We're not hungry,” Iris says as everyone's attention turns to her and her partner. “Kyle and I are gonna stay here and wait for you, right?”

“Right.” Kyle nods.

Neon did make some vague remarks how he has some sort of issue with eating out, so he generally either prepares his lunch himself or just skips it completely, and Iris goes along with him. What a sweet girl.

“Alright.” I say, getting up “See you two later, I guess.”

“Later!” After a round of goodbyes the six of us get going to catch the next shuttle.

“By the way,” Flynt asks “do you have any place in mind?”

“As a matter of fact I do.” I answer before Reese or Neon can even make a suggestion otherwise, “And this time it's proper lunch, not cake or ice cream again.”

“Hey! Ice cream is a perfectly valid lunch!” Reese protests and Neon agrees.

“Totally! And so is cake, by the way!” ...Yeah, no comment.

 

“There you are.” The vendor puts the last plate on the counter and I pay up as Bolin and Nadir balance everything to our table. Despite the girls' initial protests against something other than sweet stuff, once they saw the place, they – and everyone else – were all for it. Just as planned.

Not that it was a very hard plan. I know for a fact both Reese and Bolin like meat almost as much as I do. Nadir is okay with it, especially if it's good quality and not just some junk food, and Neon as a cat Faunus eating meat wasn't much of a stretch either, especially considering the amount of sausage and fish I saw her eat this morning. Knowing my luck, I half would've expected Flynt to be vegetarian, but he wasn't, so the grill that caught my eye in passing yesterday was the perfect spot.

And even better, the chef was actually willing to do a bit of a custom order for me, serving my steak beyond even rare in what Reese likes to call 'barbaric raw', but I've been told the technical term is 'blue rare'. Besides, when you're sufficiently sure the meat is fresh, there's nothing wrong with completely raw either, though I will admit that's very much a matter of taste. I think if anyone, Neon would be the only one to share my preferences there. Either way, everyone found something they like, and everyone but Nadir and Flynt also ends up getting seconds, the food is really good.

Once everyone's done, Neon and Flynt return to the Colosseum to watch the last two battles, while I have to shepherd the rest of the Team back to Beacon for some training, with the promise of Neon finding us after the battles to make sure I'm not pushing Reese too hard because she still needs her energy for skating. Like that'll ever happen, the skater girl may well have just as much stamina as I do. Also apparently Neon had a “super awesome idea for tomorrow” she's planning to tell us about later this evening. Now I'm curious.

 

Our training passes relatively quickly, with overall mixed results. Nadir has improved his melee a bit more and Bolin is at least paying a little attention to his footwork now, but Reese is still pretty inaccurate with her guns at anything past close quarters range. She keeps saying she doesn't really need the ranged stuff if she can get into melee fast enough, which she promptly demonstrates by getting to a row of targets and running them over with her board in about the same time it takes for Nadir to transform his weapon and shoot all of them, so I have to agree with her just a little. Though it'd still be nice if she at least tried to improve, at some point she may just need it.

After Neon arrives to drag off Reese to go skating – and undoubtedly have another race or something –, Nadir returns to our room to read a book, Bolin goes explore the town, and I decide to meditate in the spot I found yesterday.

This time I'm left alone, and completely finish my forms without any socially awkward, beanie-wearing girls attempting to ask me out – if that's what she actually was up to. I mean, yeah, May was kinda cute, even with half her face hidden under that beanie, so I suppose I might even have said yes, but let's be real. She probably really just came to apologize for her rudeness, and then ran off because she just really isn't good with people.

Why would I even be hoping for that? I don't need anyone, I'm just fine on my own. ...Who am I kidding? Reese would probably say I need to get laid, and she might not even be wrong, but physical intimacy is no substitute, not that I need- Stop it. I'm on my own, and I'm better off that way, and that's all there is to it. Period.

After that unnecessary train of thought I take a fair bit longer meditating and only get back to Beacon when dinner is almost over, having missed the others by over an hour. I just grab something to go and return to our dorm, finding one more person there than I expected.

Neon is there – which was fully expected – and as she reveals her “super awesome idea” is to go party tomorrow evening, in light of the first round of the Tournament being over, to which end she brought in a Beacon student for advice, one highly fashionable individual by the name of Coco. Coco Adel, as in the Adel designer brand, created by her mother as she explains. Neither Reese nor I are the type for fancy jewelry or brand-name clothing, but a few of the girls at Haven are, and we have at least heard of it.

Apparently Coco is Beacon's resident socialite and knows her way around Vale, so she would be the one for Neon to ask for advice, though I have no idea how Neon found her. Whatever works, I guess. As it turns out, Coco quite likes the idea, and of course she knows just the place. A large club right in the center of Vale that's particularly welcoming to Hunters because the owner's wife is a Huntress herself, so she very much knows just what they're putting on the line every day just to make sure there is a safe tomorrow for everyone else. All it takes is a single phone call from Coco and the place is booked. Not 'private function' levels of booked, but Coco assures us there won't be any problems even if we were to show up with the entirety of Beacon in tow, so I guess we're good.

Apart from that, the only thing left is getting the word out. Neon says she's gonna put some fliers on the notice board downstairs, but someone should still go around just telling people. Coco volunteers to inform the Beacon students and Reese gets ‘volunteered' to talk to the Haven students, leaving Neon with Atlas and Shade.

The evening passes uneventfully, with Coco joining us in a mostly inconsequential conversation for a while before taking her leave, followed shortly by Neon who wants to catch some people to invite them to the party. I end up accompanying Reese when she goes down the hallway a bit later, knocking on every door and telling people of the party. No big surprise, Skye and Keira are in, as is Valerie, Sun and his Team, the entirety of Team CSTL, and then some, all in all, like 80% of Haven students. If the others are similarly successful, tomorrow is definitely going to be good.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, I apologize for not showing the food fight, especially after leaving off like that, but I just had a complete writer's block regarding that scene, and after almost a full week of accomplishing nothing I decided to give it up for the time being as to not delay the entire rest of the story even further. I'm sorry T_T
> 
> Contained herein are some more hints to maybe figure out the reference in the previous chapter, as well as more shoutouts to the same source, in the shape of side character designs and names. Also to clarify, the Team names are not code or something, but if you figure out how to sound out all of them, the names should be familiar to anyone who played video games during the late 90s (yes, I'm a nerd, I know). I'll give the solution in the next chapter, try to guess the outcomes of the other two battles.
> 
> Arslan is right, probability does not at all work like Bolin thinks it does. I'm a bit of a math nerd, so I could launch into an explanation as to what he's getting wrong, but I know nobody else likes math, so I'll save it, just take my word for it. And "blue rare" steak is indeed a thing, which I didn't know either until I looked it up.
> 
> Not much more to say here, stuff happens. I swear I'm going somewhere with this.


	11. A Stranger I Remain (Pt 3)

***May***

Steady. Aim. Click. ...9. Steady. Aim. Click. ...8. Steady. Aim. Click. ...10, bullseye.

That's 7 out of 10 perfect hits, you can do better, Zedong. But I'm still warming up, and apart from my subpar accuracy, everything's fine. Okay, next target. Steady. Aim. Click. ...Dead Center.

I should've figured a town right next to a Hunter Academy would have a shooting range, but somehow it just didn't occur to me until today. Steady. Aim. Click. ...10. Fortunately the place was easy enough to find, and it's surprisingly affordable, even without a long-term ticket like I have back at Shade.

Steady. Aim. Click. ...10. 9/10, that's better. I'm supposed to be a sniper, at that distance anything lower than that is unacceptable. This is as close to a purpose as I have, so I have to be good at it. Next target. Steady. Aim. Click. ...Bullseye. I'm actually the only one here right now, so I get to just walk down the stands and shoot all the targets before they need to be replaced.

Steady. Aim. Click. ...10. A fair amount of people would have issues with the weight of my weapon, never mind the recoil and sound, neither of which is as bad as they could be with this caliber, it took quite some work to mod all the pieces of my rifle to this extent without sacrificing firepower. But for me using this large chunk of metal to shoot smaller chunks of metal at targets at several hundred meters per second is almost relaxing.

10/10, that's how you do it. Next target. ...10. Besides, climbing, shooting and maintenance of my rifle are probably the only things during which I can sort of feel 'at peace', as much as I ever will. It being training for my function as a Huntress is just a bonus. Steady. Aim. Click. ...10. Of course, the moment I notice I'm all nice and calm, I automatically think of the exact things I had just managed to stop thinking about, and now I'm not nice and calm anymore. Steady. Aim. Click. ...7. Ugh. Every single time. I probably should just accept I'm never gonna be free. All I can do is push everything aside.

Deep breaths. In... Out... Steady. Aim. Click. ...9. In... Out... In... Out... Steady. Aim. Click. ...10. ...Click. ...Click. ...Click. ...8/10. Next target.

This morning I woke up while all of the boys were still asleep, Nolan and B sharing a bed like they tend to do recently. At least this time they didn't wake me up in the middle of the night with their... deviancy, though that probably was thanks to my earplugs more than anything. Turns out they're not only handy for shooting but also to block out horny teammates.

I'm kinda evading the boys right now, but after yesterday I just need my space. My Scroll is with me and turned on – if on vibration only –, and besides, if any of them notices there's a shooting range in Vale, they'll be able to add 2 and 2 together. Though by now they know to just leave me my space when I have 'one of those days'. ...Click. 9/10. Next target.

I do like and trust the rest of my Team – which took quite a bit of work, for all of us –, but sometimes they just can't help me. No one can. But I never needed help, all I need is to be left alone on days like these, alone with myself where there's no one there to hurt me and I'm safe. So long as my Team accepts that, they're already doing what they can.

More out of necessity than anything I told them as much after both B and my partner Nolan kept pressing me if there was anything wrong. I mean, them worrying about their teammate is sweet, and I do appreciate the concern, but at the same time there really is nothing they can do, so there's no need. And on one like me it'd be wasted anyways, I'm not worth the effort.

My Team knows what they need to know, including my... past, and I assured them none of it would impact my performance during missions, and that's what counts. ...Click.10. And so far I've been true to my word. Of course I would, it's the only thing I have to stop me from thinking for a while.

It’s funny how I actually feel the most alive in the middle of a battle to the death. Even if my own life doesn't even actually matter to me. But I suppose, out there, I'm fighting for the others too, Brawnz, Roy and Nolan. And they fight for me, even though I don't matter, so the least I can do is repay them in kind. Not that _I_ weren't replaceable or something – because I very much am, and there's a good chance the whole Team would be better off with a less damaged member –, but fighting for others instead of myself is still a nice thought to keep me going. ...Click. 10/10. Oh, that was the last target, time to replace everything.

The shooting range is pretty well-equipped, so along with taking apart my rifle completely, cleaning, and reassembling it, I manage to keep myself occupied for hours. According to my Scroll, it's about time for lunch, and I really shouldn't be skipping it, but I just don't feel like eating.

There's some people filtering in over time, some looking like civilians and some ostensibly Hunters, I think that girl in gray with the crossbow is from Shade too, but I don't know her name. Including what might be the son, nephew or similar relative of the owner, a boy probably my age wearing casual clothes with blue hair framing his face at the front and spiky in the back, walking around and giving people advice or correcting their posture and stuff.

He approaches me at one point, but seems to find absolutely nothing wrong and leaves a moment later. He also turns out to be a pretty good marksman himself, from what I see, despite him lugging around a massive sword on his back. Okay, 'sword' may be a bit of a stretch, the thing really looks like a cross between a claymore, a club and a chunk of steel. Also it's light blue. ...To each his own I guess, I could hardly even lift that thing, much less swing it around.

...Click. ...Hit. That's 20/20. I switched to a stand with steel targets scattered downrange, because they reset faster than changing the paper target all the time. There we go, a press of a button, and they're all back up. Steady. Aim. Click. ...Hit.

...Click. 19/20, I can live with that. I start a little when someone comes up behind me and speaks up.

“Hey there.” I turn around to see the blue-haired boy standing behind me with a friendly smile. “You're pretty good with that sniper rifle of yours.”

“Um, thanks.”

“Huntress of course, right? Here for the Tournament?”

“Yeah. I'm from Shade.”

“I see. Name's Isa, by the way. My dad owns the place.”

“I-I'm May.”

“Got it. Say, you can clearly handle your rifle, but what about a real boomstick?”

“I trained with all sorts of guns. What's your point?”

“Would you care for a little contest?” Isa points to a door in the back of the room. “Skeet shooting. With shotguns. If you can beat me, you can have another round for free.”

That's certainly a tempting offer, and I was going to practice fast-moving targets anyways, so why the hell not? “Sure, I'm in.”

“Great.” Isa grins “I'm not gonna go easy on you, though. Let's go.”

A shotgun is more or less the exact opposite of my sniper rifle, but I did try out most types of firearms before deciding, and even after that every now and then I change it up a little at the shooting range, so I still do decently. Better than just 'decently' probably, as I end up beating Isa by a single point, to his visible – and somewhat entertaining – disbelief. He takes it in stride though, and helps me set up the next round before running off to prevent some kid from shooting himself into the foot.

This time I use my own rifle, because there's just no beating it, especially after the years of maintenance, calibration and modification that went into it to make it both as hard-hitting and durable as possible, and without giving up any handling at that. At this point, it's a real work of art. Even though the range is too short to scope in, I still get almost all of the targets, and given that Grimm are either significantly larger or far enough away to scope in on properly, I suppose it's good enough. Seeing as the skeet shooting costs extra, and it's really not the optimal training for my sort of gun, after the one free round I return to a stand with moving targets.

Over the course of the afternoon I start doing some fancy trickshots and maneuvers. There's only so many ways you can quickdraw a sniper rifle, but I still practice that a handful of times, too bad I don't have anyone with me to take the time I need to draw, fire and stow it. I guess I could ask Isa, but he actually seems to be acting as a supervisor or something, and right now he's busy kicking out a group of teenagers that were picking on a rabbit Faunus who herself wasn't even shooting, but instead taking pictures of weapons. Poor girl. This just goes to show once more how people will take any opportunity, anything that's different, as an invitation for their cruelty.

When the Faunus notices my attention I give her sympathetic smile. I know just how you feel, girl. Better than you'd ever expect. She returns the smile and approaches me, brandishing her camera, so I pose with my rifle – ignoring a few safety rules, but I know what I'm doing so they're more like guidelines anyways, and I know for a fact the safety was on – and she takes a few shots of me before hurrying off with a wave and another thankful smile.

Apart from the quickdrawing, I also practice stuff like quickscopes, no-scopes and even pull off a 360-no-scope, even if that last one is a completely pointless stunt just for looking fancy that would only get you killed in a real combat situation. If anything, you need a 180 and a quick and accurate shot to save your ass. Of course, if I ever get into a situation where I have to pull off anything like that, odds are I, my Team, or both of us screwed up somewhere down the line, or things are just generally going to hell in a handbasket anyways. But it's still best to be somewhat prepared at least.

Apparently this is more of a civilian shooting range though, and not specifically Hunter training, so I can't do most of the stuff I'd really like to practice for a lack of space or specialty targets. Unless the good stuff is just hidden, but on my asking Isa confirms they don't have any real sort of action shooting facilities here. I wonder if Beacon has some of those, and if guests are allowed in there.

However, Isa mentions there is an outside range with extremely far targets that only gets opened towards the evening, 'cause before that you're shooting directly against the sun. But now that it's starting to set, this sounds like just the place for a sniper.

True enough, the targets are really far away, well over a kilometer, and even with the biggest zoom lens they still appear really small. I actually have to aim noticeably above the target, but at least there's practically no wind pushing my bullets to the side. Of course I'm rather unlikely to encounter these sorts of circumstances too often either, but some more accuracy never hurt anyone. Also this is like the supreme discipline, getting 10/10 perfect hits on one of the targets here is a real feat, one I did accomplish a handful of times before. My personal best shot was exploding an Ursa's head from something like 1800 meters away, with Nolan acting as my spotter being suitably impressed when he confirmed that kill.

Here I don't have a spotter, but the targets aren't gonna wander off to eat small children if left unchecked either, the only thing getting hurt is gonna be my pride if I don't keep at least a 75% accuracy. Steady. Aim. Click. ...10, looks like we're off to a good start.

...Click. ...9, damn, I just had to miss the last shot, or it would've been a perfect one. That's the third time in a row I miss just by one hit, I guess I should be happy I'm consistently doing this good right now, but it's not good enough, sniping is the one thing I do, so I have to be as close to perfect as possible.

Though when he passes by and looks at the display reading out my results – because at these ranges of course you use electronics – Isa is clearly impressed and whistles approvingly. “Not half bad.” Don't sound so surprised, I already beat you in shooting; this is next to the only thing I have, so I damn well better be good at it. “You could almost give Braig a run for his money.”

Oh yeah, the owner, Isa's father. The tall man with the graying black looks like a Hunter, if his face is any indication; the eyepatch with the scar running right below it, along with the other one on his cheek tells a relatively clear story. ...Click. ...10.

I guess shooting is one of the things you can still do relatively well with just one eye, the lack of depth perception – and that massive blind spot – would hit a melee fighter much harder. I wonder if Braig is still an active Hunter or already retired and running this place to teach the next generation or something. Okay, yeah, that's a cliché, and besides, if he wanted to teach Hunters, he could have gone to Beacon instead, maybe he's just doing this because he really likes shooting.

The life expectancy for Hunters has steadily been increasing with advances in technology, especially weapons and medical care, as well as counseling, so there are more and more making it to retirement, with an admittedly nice pension, as well as tales of their feats and the scars to show for it.

But I don't think I ever want to get to the point where I retire. I have to be out there, fighting, it's the only way to... One way or the other, I'm never gonna retire. So more like, the one way will eventually lead to the other. And I'm fine with that, doesn't even matter if it's tomorrow, or in 10 years, or in 50. ...Click. ...10. 9/10, again. Next target.

“Wow,” Isa says “That one eye of yours is pretty sharp. Just like my old man's.”

...Click. ...10. Just like Braig? Not really. Apart from the obvious differences, his face is much more presentable. The scar on his cheek is clearly a claw mark, as is the one across his eye most likely, and if not, it's from a sword or something. Either way, both are obviously marks of combat, of valor, as well as easy on the eyes as long as he keeps that eyepatch on.

Me? Not so much. I'm a disfigured freak hiding behind my beanie, not even because the sight may disturb others, but simply so the others won't look at me, won't look at the freak, and just leave me alone.

...Click. My fingers are quivering and I completely miss the target. Come on. Isa just made a harmless remark, there's no way he knows... Deep breaths. In... Out... Click. ...3 In... Out... In... Out... Steady. Aim. Click. ...Another miss. Dust damnit.

“What's wrong?” Isa either notices me shaking, or my expression, or just the fact I'm suddenly screwing up shots.

Get it fucking together. In... Out... Click. Miss. It's no good.

“Don't worry,” Isa gives me an encouraging smile “Everyone has their off days sometimes.”

I wonder if I'm not having more 'off' days than normal days. Well, it'd be kinda appropriate for someone like me. ...I think just yesterday Ar-

“Hey,” Isa puts a hand on my shoulder and I flinch. “Are you okay?”

Okay? I'm not, and I wasn't for a very long time. Yet I keep hearing that question, from all these people with their false smiles and encouraging lies and concerns that are wasted on me anyways.

“...May?”

“I think I'm done.” With one swift motion I flick on the safety on my rifle and store it on my back, then brush away Isa's hand with my own as I turn around and swiftly walk away, leaving Isa standing there dumbfounded, only calling after me when I'm already at the door.

“Wait! Did I do anything wrong?” Not you, me. As always. It’s always me.

I manage to pace my step until I leave the shooting range, ignoring Braig's goodbye, and once I'm out of the doors break into a run, just run, heedless of where I'm going.

Eventually I end up not too far from Beacon, on a path through a light forest approaching the academy from the back. Guess that's where I'm going. Only now I notice my hands were clenched into fists the whole time, to the extent my relatively short nails still managed to draw small, since-dried trickles of blood. Not like that that's a first either.

Only now I realize thanks to my hasty departure my rifle is still loaded, which even with the safety on is still a very bad idea. If it can explode a Grimm's head at 2 kilometers, no points for guessing what it'd do to my foot if it goes off. And that'd just be a really, _really_ embarrassing way to get myself hurt.

I wipe my hands on my trousers as best as I can and unload my rifle, I can properly clean it later in the evening. I make my way towards Beacon, ending up in the same park sort of area I found Arslan in yesterday. And made an idiot out of myself. ...I've been over this enough already, so don't even think about it again. It only matters if I let it.

Though I wonder what exactly she was doing. I mean, I know of these sorts of martial arts or armed forms, but aren't there training grounds for this sort of thing? Okay, the scenery here is much nicer, but still. It didn't seem like Arslan was simply practicing, she was moving far too slow, and with her breathing it seemed closer to... I don't know, it sort of reminded me of meditation. Is that a thing? Meditation while performing a kata? Maybe. It definitely seemed interesting though.

I wonder if meditating would do me any good. Dust knows I could use some ordering and calming – or just suppressing – my thoughts often enough. But just as much as help, it might also just make me see the pointlessness and hopelessness all the more clearly. Either way, I don't know any kata or whatever, so I'd probably just stick to the typical cross-legged thing, if that's how it works. ...Okay, maybe I should look up some of this stuff.

But if meditation is sort of like focusing all your thoughts on one thing – or like exactly nothing –, then it might not be that different from what I'm already doing when I'm climbing or shooting sometimes.

And seeing as those two things do help quite a bit, I think I'm gonna try it out at some point, once I figure out exactly how. And I need to come up with a place. Our dorm is pretty much out, and I don't really want to just do it publicly either. I'm not sure how usual or unusual someone meditating is, but you can bet it's gonna attract some stares for sure, which is literally the opposite of what I'd need.

Maybe up on one of the towers. I think at least a few of them have a flat roof, so that'd be an idea. If they're used for astrology or something, it may even be accessible without climbing. Boring, yes, but also more convenient, as well as less against the rules, probably. That sounds like a plan, I'm gonna check out all the towers to see if I can find a place. Tomorrow, though, it's already starting to get dark, and I think I'm about to miss dinner. Doesn't matter, I don't feel like hurrying up right now, and I have some reserves in our room, so I won't starve. But I suppose I should be getting back, at some point Nolan's gonna start worrying.

That walk through the park actually helped me calm down a bit, so I leisurely make my way back to our dorm. However on my way there, just as I'm walking past the main building someone calls out to me. “Hey! Over there, wait a second!” I turn around to see a redhead girl speeding towards me on rollerskates, pulling a ...rainbow, what? after her.

With a wide smile she slides to an expert stop right in front of me and the rainbow trailing behind her vanishes, so it was like a hologram or an illusion. What was the point of that?

“Hiya! The name's Neon. You're a Huntress, right?” What else would I be doing on the grounds of Beacon Academy at this hour, carrying a sniper rifle strapped to my back?

“Obviously.”

“Have you heard about the party yet?” Right, this was the girl Roy mentioned yesterday, who was having a movie night, and apparently now she's moved on to a full-blown party.

“No, what party?”

“I figured in light of everyone making it through the first round alive, there should totally be a party tomorrow, for the winners to celebrate, the losers to cheer up, and everyone to have fun!”

Fair enough, even though I'm not really a party person. But I suppose the boys might be interested. I nod. “When and where?”

“Like, I dunno, 8 PM, the place is called 'Dante's 7', it's right in the center of Vale. You coming?”

“...We'll see.”

“You totally should come, it's gonna be awesome! Also tell your teammates!”

“I will.”

“Great. If they're indecisive, tell them there's gonna be cake! Because there is, and it's going to be delicious!”

“Um... sure.”

“Perfect! Alright, gotta go, I still need to catch a bunch of other people! See you tomorrow!”

And with that Neon turns around and darts off before I can even get in a 'bye', once more creating a rainbow trail after her as she homes in on ...I think Gwen was her name and the girl in gray I also saw at the shooting range.

“Hey, ladies! Care to have some fun?!” Because that question can't be misconstrued in any way. Not that this sort of thing among girls is something you should ever suggest at all, but seriously, Neon is decked in rainbow colors, more or less, so what would you expect?

I return to our dorm, and am greeted by Nolan about as I'd expected. “There you are, May. Where've you been?”

“At a shooting range in Vale.”

“You could have said something. Or at least answered your Scroll.”

I get it out, and indeed, there's two missed calls and five new messages. “Sorry, I was shooting, so I must've missed it.” And that last one I may have simply ignored because by that time I was in the process of running away once more.

“Yeah, well, I was starting to worry. We hadn't heard from you all day, and yesterday Roy said you were gonna come to the movie night, but you never showed up.”

“C'mon, Nolan, you know her by now,” Roy interjects “Sometimes May just needs her alone time.”

“Well, she still could have said something. We're her teammates after all.”

“Sorry,” I say as I drop onto my bed, digging through my bag for something edible. “Yesterday I suddenly just wasn't feeling well. I think something I ate disagreed with me. But nevermind that, have you guys heard of the party planned for tomorrow?”

“What party?” Of course that gets B's attention.

In between going through almost a whole bag of dried fruit – and of course sharing with Nolan and Roy, B wouldn't touch anything that might possibly be healthy with a 10-foot pole – I tell the boys about Neon's idea and, as expected, they're all for it. And for dragging me along.

“Come on, May, don't be like that,” Nolan says “It's gonna be great.”

“Well, but I _am_ like that. You all know I'm not good with people.”

“Which is exactly why you should be coming along.” B adds “To get you out of your comfort zone for a little.”

“But I like my comfort zone, it's there for a reason after all.” The reason mostly being to keep others from hurting me.

“Yeah, but you can't always be a shut-in. I'm sure going out a bit is gonna do you some good.” I really doubt that.

“And besides,” Nolan adds, “Without the whole Team BRNZ it's just not the same.”

“Are we talking about attending some party or going on a mission?”

“Same difference. Would it help if you treat it like a mission?”

Not really. But he just wants the best for me. All of them do, even though I never did anything to deserve it and ultimately they're wasting it on a broken girl. But still...

I grin. “That depends on how well the mission would be compensated.”

“I see.” Nolan laughs “You still like that abomination they call deep-fried ice-cream, right?” I absolutely love it, and I can't fathom what Nolan's issue is, everyone else agrees with me it's delicious.

I nod. “Looks like you got yourself a deal, I'll accept the mission.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Another angsty May chapter. I can relate to her in some things at least, which probably helped. Still, feedback on this one is especially appreciated. Also more hints about her past, all will be revealed in time (some of the guesses I got so far were pretty close already).
> 
> I apologize if there are any inaccuracies/mistakes portraying the shooting range, but I'm not from the US and have never touched, much less fired a gun in my life (plus, who is to say that shooting ranges on Remnant have to be the exact same on as on Earth?) Also Velvet makes a cameo (as do some others); the guys picking on her were the same Jay and his flunkies encountered in chapter 3 (but there was literally no way to tell that, and no way to write it in without being too heavy-handed).
> 
> For anyone curious, the reference two chapters back was a big one to Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow. The Team names sounded out give the names of the eight Cities holding a Gym in the order they are first visited (mostly, you can do a little bit of sequence breaking with the last three). The winners can be figured out by the matchup the respective Gym's types have against each other, thus VRDN, VRML, FCSA and SFRN advanced to the doubles round. 
> 
> Next chapter we'll be going to a party. (Btw, shoutout to my sis for coming up with the name of the club.) And while I know where I ultimately want the scene go, I'm in fact not much of a party person myself and lacking in experience to draw from, so feel free to let me hear any suggestions you have what kind of stuff might happen there.


End file.
